Possible Legal Consequences from the Trump Retweeted CNN Pounding Video
Updates on 7/6/2017: CNN has identified the author of the Reddit site Han… Apparently, the author Han… has lawyered up, and has taken down the offending site. He apologizes, said he is not a bigoted person, and will not continue such a site. CNN has withheld his name to protect him from trolls who might be violent or carry out abusive troll tactics. The author advises other bigots or trolls to not follow the path that he took.
In my first consideration of legal consequences, it did not yet occur to me that if the author Han… was identified and held a job at a sensitive firm, then his job might be in danger. If the author was a student, his status in a school could be in jeopardy.
The author Han… claims that his original post was doctored by adding sound, and it may have been done on an intermediate twitter site, before it got to the White House.
News coverage has finally realized that North Korea, Putin, Angela Merkel, and Free Trade, all at the G-20, are really more important topics.
First, President Trump was inaugurated by taking the oath of office on two bibles, one of which was Abraham Lincoln’s. He swore to uphold the Constitution. The amendment chosen to be first in the Bill of Rights is: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Trump’s retweeting of a doctored WWE video which now shows him pummeling his “fake news” enemy CNN is a direct violation of the First Amendment’s freedom of speech, and of the press. In a matter of days, the press has found that the owner of the Reddit site which originated the CNN doctored video, Han… , creates or traffics in anti-semitism, Islamophobia, and racism. This is not the first time that Trump has retweeted anti-Semitic material. The Han… Site also includes a 9 by 9 photo array of all of the reporters at CNN who are Jewish. Let’s realize that Trump is the only man in the world who can direct the FBI and America’s 17 intelligence agencies to check out what kind of a site he is about to retweet from. It only took the press a day or two to find this out. Had Trump exercised due diligence before retweeting what is now an anti-Semitic video from the @POTUS site, he would have known that he was forfeiting his self-awarded “World’s least anti-Semitic person” to his new position as the world’s most well known promoter of an anti-Semitic site. He could be charged for not only violating the First Amendment’s freedom of the press, but also for attacking religions.
There may be legal issues with the use of a WWE copyrighted video and its unauthorized modification to be anti-CNN. If this was done by Han…, he could be sued not just for copyright violation, but for dragging down the name of the WWE by associating it with attacking freedom of the press and anti-semitism. By retweeting such an illegally used and altered video, Trump may also be in legal trouble. Trump has over 50 agreements where he makes money simply by licensing his name. According to the Washington post, he has made over $56 million from such agreements. Trump certainly knows the laws about illegally using some entities’ name without licensing.
The news reports seem to indicate that the video was further edited before being retweeted. This prompts all sorts of questions. Whoever in the White House might have done such a thing would also be responsible for copyright violations.
The head of Homeland Security, when informed of the video on a live TV interview, said he hoped that nobody would take the suggestion of violence to CNN seriously. We know from experience, that disturbed people do take such suggestions seriously.
Since bloggers like to talk up their sites, the identity of Han… Will probably soon be known. The fact that he has derogatorily modified the Lucasfilm Ltd. Name of Han Solo in his Reddit account name could put the blogger in legal trouble, as well as the anti-Semitic and racist material he is associating with that name.
While the press, opinion makers, Republicans, and anybody in his family or administration who is not obsequious have all advised him to stop tweeting, this should finally be enough. A further question is whether these racist and anti-Semitic sites are being followed by Trump or by someone in his administration, who is then suggesting their content to Trump, without screening the sites.
