Now Peter Thiel's Lawyer Wants To Silence Reporting On Trump's Hair

[octoberlib]

One day after the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel revealed his clandestine legal attack on Gawker Media to the New York Times, Gawker reporter Ashley Feinberg published a lengthy investigation that sought to solve the enduring mystery of Donald Trump’s infamous mane, which she described as a “cotton candy hairspray labyrinth.”

Thiel has portrayed Gawker as a force for evil, but Feinberg’s article—which drew potential connections between Trump and the work of a $60,000-a-pop hair-extension company called Ivari International—still went over rather well, drawing praise from staffers at the Times, the Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic; and at least three winners of the Pulitzer Prize.

Even David Simon, the award-winning reporter-turned-screenwriter and frequent critic of Gawker, offered his accolades, arguing that if the U.S. press had investigated the Bush Administration’s claims about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction with the same energy, the Iraq War might have been avoided.

But if you were under the impression that praise-worthy journalism is somehow inoculated against campaigns like Thiel’s, you’d be mistaken. Last week, Thiel’s lawyer-for-hire, Charles J. Harder, sent Gawker a letter on behalf of Ivari International’s owner and namesake, Edward Ivari, in which Harder claims that Feinberg’s story was “false and defamatory,” invaded Ivari’s privacy, intentionally inflicted emotional distress, and committed “tortious interference” with Ivari’s business relations. Harder enumerates 19 different purportedly defamatory statements—almost all of which were drawn from several publicly available lawsuits filed against Ivari.


http://gawker.com/now-peter-thiels-lawyer-wants-to-silence-reporting-on-t-1781918385


The article in question :Is Donald Trump’s Hair a $60,000 Weave? A Gawker Investigation http://gawker.com/is-donald-trump-s-hair-a-60-000-weave-a-gawker-invest-1777581357

[immoderate]

1. I call him "the weavel."

--imm

[jberryhill]

2. "all of which were drawn from several publicly available lawsuits filed against Ivari"

What is the purpose of that line?

Does the author think "If you quote something from a publicly available legal filing" then it can't be defamatory?

These people need better legal advice.

I can say something defamatory about someone in a filing in a civil suit, and that statement is protected against being deemed defamatory by a special immunity given to statements in legal proceedings.

However, if you take that statement, for which I had immunity when I made that statement to the court, and you publish it elsewhere, you are not protected from a defamation suit on the basis of your publication of that statement.

These people need better lawyers.

[octoberlib]

3. Does the law vary by state? I guess Gawker just doesn't care. Thiel is an

Ayn Randian asshole who's just harassing them at this point. They filed for bankruptcy!

[jberryhill]

5. The litigation privilege is pretty uniform and deep rooted

It's a very old common law privilege.

And, yeah, it seems that Gawker doesn't care at this point.

[Vinca]

4. If that's a $60,000 weave, he didn't get his money's worth.

It looks like a nest.