Clay Calvert:
It’s absolutely not to win in court. The real goal here is to chill the press, to have the news media engage in what we call self-censorship, to pull back their stories.
So, instead of playing a watchdog role, as typically we think of the fourth estate plane when it comes to the government, what I think Trump is really trying to do is make the press be a lapdog, turn it into something that’s not going to bark at him when he takes office again in 2025.
So, really, the goal here is to chill the press, to try to scare them off from criticizing him. That’s the larger purpose. It’s what we would think of sometimes as a strategic lawsuit against public participation or a SLAPP suit, strategic lawsuit against public participation.
The whole purpose here is designed to chill the press from participating in criticizing him.
