Trump threatens $5 billion lawsuit over report questioning National Guard crime reduction claims

President Donald Trump is threatening legal action against a left-leaning think tank, demanding it retract a report that challenged his claims about the effectiveness of National Guard deployments in reducing crime. The Washington D.C.-based Center for American Progress (CAP) received a letter from Trump's attorney demanding a retraction by the end of business Friday, or face a $5 billion lawsuit.

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is a transparent attempt to silence us. We will neither cower nor bend in the face of it.

The report, published on July 13, criticized the Trump administration for taking credit for a drop in violent crime that the analysis concluded was already underway. CAP's findings indicated that the National Guard deployment "had no measurable effect on violent crime trends." Neera Tanden, CAP's president and CEO, stated that the lawsuit is "a transparent attempt to silence us" and that the organization "will neither cower nor bend in the face of it."

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In an effort to falsely claim his policies have reduced crime, the president is exploiting the fact that violent crime and murder were already declining in the cities his administration targeted with these extreme interventions.

Trump's attorney, Alejandro Brito, argued in the letter that the report contained "false, malicious, and defamatory statements" about the president. He specifically cited a statement suggesting Trump was exploiting declining crime rates to falsely claim policy success. Brito warned that failure to retract the report would compel Trump to seek remedies for "overwhelming financial and reputational harm."

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immediately retract the false, malicious, and defamatory statements made about President Trump.

However, CAP's general counsel, Kevin Metz, responded that the defamation claim is "utterly absurd," asserting that "truth is not and cannot be defamation." Experts suggest such threats are a tactic to intimidate rather than a genuine pursuit of damages. This move is consistent with Trump's history of threatening lawsuits against perceived critics and media outlets he dislikes.

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is utterly absurd: truth is not and cannot be defamation. The legal standards here are clear, well-established, and speech-protective.