By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--April 13, 2017
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In a joint statement, the parties said the Mail retracted its false statements that Trump “provided services beyond simply modeling” and agreed to pay damages and costs. The total settlement for the U.S. and U.K. lawsuits was about $2.9 million, according to a person familiar with the settlement who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose the information, which was not released in court.
Trump sued the Daily Mail in Britain and Mail Online in the United States over an August 2016 article, which ran in the newspaper under the headline “Racy photos and troubling questions about his wife’s past that could derail Trump.” In a lawsuit filed in New York in February, the first lady’s attorneys argued that the report was false and damaged her ability to develop “multi-million dollar business relationships” based on her status as a well-known figure and “successful businesswoman.” As part of the settlement, the Mail published an apology, saying “we accept that these allegations about Mrs. Trump are not true and we retract and withdraw them.”The First Lady had asked for $150 million in damages, so this is not a total victory in an economic sense. I suppose $2.9 million is chump change for the wife of Donald Trump (although if she's looking for something to do with it, she can contact me). But the retraction and apology are a complete vindication of her personally and of her reputation - especially encouraging because it's very difficult for a public figure to win a libel suit. It shouldn't be. A lie is a lie, regardless of who you're telling it about.
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