Trump tries to block release of ‘libelous ‘ book

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump tries to counter one-two blows of betrayal and scandal Thursday, punching back at a bare-knuckle book that portrays his White House as a fetid stew of backbiting, incompetence and dysfunction.

Trump’s lawyers move to prevent the release of “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” — an exposé by author and political muck spreader Michael Wolff — which quotes key Trump aides raising questions about his fitness for office.

The book — which paints Trump as craven, unstable and far out of his depth in the Oval Office — extensively quotes his former ally and chief strategist Steve Bannon, who also received a “cease and desist” order from Trump’s attorneys.

“Your publication of the false/baseless statements about Mr. Trump gives rise to, among other claims, defamation by libel, defamation by libel per se, false light invasion of privacy, tortious interference with contractual relations, and inducement of breach of contract,” Trump’s lawyers say in the letter to Wolff.

In the book, Bannon is quoted accusing Trump’s eldest son Don Jr of “treasonous” contacts with a Kremlin-linked lawyer, and saying the president’s daughter Ivanka is “dumb as a brick.”

But it is the US president himself that is cast in the most unfavorable light — by a series of his top aides. The book claims that for “Steve Mnuchin and Reince Priebus, the president was an ‘idiot.’ For Gary Cohn, he was ‘dumb as shit.’ For H.R. McMaster, he was a ‘dope.’ The list went on.”

— AFP