Trump lawyer to liberal think tank: Retract National Guard report that defames president

descriptions off, selected

captions settings, opens captions settings dialog

captions off, selected

This is a modal window.

Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.

End of dialog window.

Trending on The Hill - August 21, 2026

Trending on The Hill - August 21, 2026

President Trump has demanded a liberal think tank retract a critical report on his National Guard deployments by Friday evening, threatening to file a $5 billion defamation suit if it doesn’t.

In a nine-page letter sent Monday by Trump’s personal attorney, which was reviewed by The Hill, he claimed the Center for American Progress (CAP) “manufactured” that the deployments weren’t improving violent crime.

“Defendants did not merely draw a different academic conclusion; they defamed President Trump by distorting a contested empirical question into a sensational, false, malicious and defamatory accusation that President Trump knowingly lied to the American people,” attorney Alejandro Brito wrote.

In a statement, CAP President and CEO Neera Tanden, a senior adviser to former President Biden, called the threat “baseless” and defended the report as “rigorous, evidence-based research and analysis.”

“A fundamental protection of the First Amendment is to........

© The Hill