Celebrity figures threaten to sue publications all the time, but this is a little different.
Melania Trump, the wife of GOP nominee Donald Trump, is threatening to sue half a dozen publications for reporting that she worked for an escort service in the 1990s. What makes this more than routine celebrity gossip is the Trump's choice of lawyer.
Trump, the wife of the Republican presidential nominee, has placed The Daily Mail and other news organizations "on notice... for making false and defamatory statements about her supposedly having been an 'escort' in the 1990s," Charles Harder, a lawyer for Trump, said in a statement. [...]
The outlets that have been put on notice by Melania Trump include The Daily Mail, The Week, Politico, Inquisitr, Tarpley, Before It's News, Liberal America, LawNewz, Winning Democrats and Bipartisan Report, Harder told CNNMoney.
Charles Harder represented Hulk Hogan in his case against Gawker Media and, as you know, Gawker was forced into bankruptcy and shut down this week.
Inquisitr and Bipartisan Report have already apologized for citing the original Daily Mail report and I'm forced to wonder if they would have apologized so quickly if a billionaire-funded lawyer who just killed Gawker wasn't breathing down their neck.
Whether or not the original story is true or false, legal threats against publications could become far more common now and just a threat may be enough to make a story go away.
I would be remiss not to point out the glaring hypocrisy of the Trumps on this particular issue given their extremely close ties to the National Enquirer and Breitbart News. Both publications print salacious garbage as a matter of routine, but you don't see Democrats crying to their lawyers about it.