the inevitable defamation suits will likely take aim at an even bigger target: the President of the United States.

submitted by typhoon from westernjournal.com

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[–]BravoVictor 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Not only did Biden suggest that Rittenhouse was a white supremacist on CNN shortly after the teenager shot three rioters in self-defense in fiery riots last year, the candidate also included an image of Kyle with his AR-15-style rifle in a video he tweeted out as part of a montage of white nationalists and Proud Boys in Charlottesville and elsewhere, along with audio of Chris Wallace asking Trump to disavow white supremacists.

Even if that's true, the law gives POTUS pretty ironclad protections from lawsuits. Otherwise a political party could cripple the administration by just getting a bunch of people to sue him, which the Democrats tried to do under Trump, to no avail.

A better target would probably be the DNC or whatever media and/or marketing company was putting words in Biden's mouth. Because we all know Biden wasn't running his own Twitter account, and probably knew nothing about Rittenhouse. But his puppetmasters did. And they don't have legal protections.

[–]typhoon[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Biden made those comments as a private citizen, not POTUS.

[–]BravoVictor 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

True, but the protections still apply while he's POTUS. They might try suing him in four years, but that's a long time to pay lawyers to do nothing but wait. And even then, there's probably a lot of sympathetic judges that would toss any attempts to sue him over defamation.

IANAL, but I'd imagine there's also probably a statute of limitations on a case like that, which the POTUS protections might effectively defeat by running out the clock. It's a very niche area of law that's not be tested much by the courts. Virtually every President has some legal action begin during or after their term, but few have had pending legal action due to actions before their term.

Bill Clinton was one of the few, and it really dogged him and drained his finances, but he ultimately didn't face any criminal charges. Trump has a few cases involving contract disputes, but I believe he outright won those, like against Stormy Daniels.