CBS‘ legal team said in a court filing that the network planned to seek Donald Trump‘s personal financial information if the president’s $20 billion lawsuit against the network proceeds to a discovery phase.
The network’s attorneys outlined their likely requests in a filing in Texas federal court on Tuesday. They also said they would seek the financials of Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, the Trump Media & Technology Group and Truth Social, and the president’s $TRUMP meme crypto project.
“Defendants further anticipate that discovery will be needed into President Trump’s legal relationship, if any, with the Donald J. Trump for President 2024 campaign and the Trump Media & Technology Group,” the network’s legal team said in a joint proposed scheduling order.
Typically, defendants in litigation seek the other party’s financial information to challenge a plaintiff’s damages claim. In this case, the $20 billion sum is more than the value of CBS’ parent company, Paramount Global, which is also a defendant in the case.
Trump sued the network and Paramount Global in October, after 60 Minutes aired an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.
His lawsuit originally claimed a violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, claiming that the network deceptively edited the interview to boost Harris’ electoral chances. The basis of the claim was the fact that, in a Face the Nation promo for the 60 Minutes interview, Harris gave answered a question differently than the one that was featured in the Oct. 7 60 Minutes broadcast.
At one point in interview, correspondent Bill Whitaker asked Harris why Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not listening to the Biden administration.
Harris said, “Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region. And we’re not going to stop doing that. We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”
In a Face the Nation promo for the interview, Harris was shown giving the first sentence in her answer. On 60 Minutes, she was shown answering with the last sentence. The network said that there was no deception involved, and that the edit was made in the interest of time, a routine practice in broadcast news. In the face of an FCC inquiry, the network turned over an unedited transcript and video of the interview earlier this month.
Trump, though, has pressed ahead in his lawsuit. He amended his lawsuit earlier this month, doubling his damages figure and adding claims of false advertising and unfair competition under the Lanham Act. He now claims that CBS deceptively edited the interview in a way that cost traffic and viewership to his own media company, Trump Media and Technology Group, which includes his social media platform Truth Social.
Legal observers and some industry groups, including the National Association of Broadcasters, have characterized Trump’s lawsuit as frivolous. But the litigation has proceeded just as Paramount Global is seeking regulatory approval of its sale to Skydance. The latest court filing confirmed that both sides in the litigation have had settlement talks. While the idea behind a settlement would be to pave the way for approval of the Skydance-Paramount Global merger, according to sources, it also has created consternation and pushback within CBS News as caving to Trump on a frivolous complaint.
For their part, Trump’s legal team wrote that it plans to seek internal communications from the network, something that they say is needed to determine “internal biases and prejudices” and “the animus against President Trump,” among other things.
Because they are suing under laws traditionally used to target false advertising and marketing, Trump’s legal team also claims that the Harris interview was “commercial speech calculated to drive profits and viewership for Defendants.” The network, though, says that what they are challenging are editorial decisions protected by the First Amendment.
Trump’s new complaint added Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) as a defendant, something intended to bolster their claim that the case should proceed in Amarillo. But CBS’s legal team, seeking dismissal on a number of grounds, says that the addition of Jackson was “a vain attempt to create a nexus to the forum.”