Trump Campaign Co-Manager Files Defamation Lawsuit Against Media Outlet

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Chris LaCivita, the co-manager of President Trump’s 2024 campaign, sued The Daily Beast for defamation over stories related to how much he earned from the campaign.

According to Florida Politics, the lawsuit stems from reporting on campaign finance information that LaCivita says was false and defamatory.

“F*** around and Find Out Trump senior adviser files defamation suit against The Daily Beast,” LaCivita said.

Per Florida Politics:

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia Richmond Division, seeks punitive and compensatory damages, including compensation equal to three times “the damages Plaintiffs sustained,” as well as attorneys fees. The lawsuit does not specify damages, and asks for a jury award.

While an exact amount isn’t mentioned in the lawsuit, it says that “it is estimated that it would cost millions of dollars” to repair LaCivita’s reputation “as a result of the defamatory articles.”

The lawsuit says LaCivita “suffered special damages, including damage to his reputation and loss of business income” as a result of reporting that LaCivita was paid $22 million for his work with the Trump campaign over the course of two years, a figure later revised down to $19.2 million.

The lawsuit says the fees cited in The Daily Beast article in question paid to LaCivita represent “gross expenditures, not Mr. LaCivita’s personal compensation.” Instead, most of the money was “used for campaign advertising expenses,” the lawsuit says.

It further alleges that the “defamatory reporting created the false impression that Mr. LaCivita was personally profiting excessively from his work on the campaign and that he was prioritizing personal gain over the campaign’s success,” which the lawsuit says caused “substantial professional and personal damages.”

From the Associated Press:

The Daily Beast said it stood by its reporting and said the lawsuit “is meritless and a transparent attempt to intimidate the Beast and silence the independent press.”

Celebrity attorney Mark Geragos is representing LaCivita in the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond, Virginia. The filing was first reported by Axios.

The case continues a trend of aggressive action taken against the news media by Trump and those in his orbit. Trump has sued CBS News for $20 billion over editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with his 2024 opponent, Kamala Harris, and sued the Des Moines Register over an Iowa election poll that turned out to be inaccurate. ABC News settled a lawsuit with Trump over its incorrect claim that the president had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll.

LaCivita, in his lawsuit, said the majority of the money paid by Trump to him and his firm, Advancing Strategies LLC, was to buy media ads. He alleges that the stories created a negative perception for him and his firm and hindered the ability to attract new clients.

In a letter to Geragos last month, the Daily Beast said it would request that Trump and several of his aides be made available for the discovery process. The company’s lawyer, Neil Rosenhouse, disputed the idea that LaCivita’s business had been hurt.

“The Beast’s reporting that the LLC earned millions of dollars by successfully managing President Trump’s campaign is not defamatory,” he wrote, “it is the opposite.”



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