Trump's legal team threatens $5B defamation suit against think tank over crime data report

On August 17th, President Trump's lawyer sent a letter that amounted to a legal ultimatum: retract a report about National Guard deployments, apologize for it, and pay compensation—or face a $5 billion defamation lawsuit. The target was the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank that had published research in July concluding there was no evidence that National Guard troops deployed to major cities had actually reduced violent crime.

The report in question examined crime data from three cities where the Trump administration had stationed Guard members: Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and Memphis. The deployments began in June 2025 when Trump ordered troops to Los Angeles to protect federal immigration officials during raids. Two months later, he announced Guard deployments to the nation's capital, describing the move as necessary to "rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor." Memphis followed. The Center for American Progress analyzed the numbers in each location and found that the Guard presence had no measurable effect on violent crime, homicides, or gun victimizations.

Trump's attorney, Alejandro Brito, claimed the report contained materially false statements designed to damage the president. He gave the think tank until 5 p.m. on Friday to comply with his demands. The organization's response was swift and unambiguous. Kevin Metz, an attorney for the Center for American Progress, wrote back that "truth is not and cannot be defamation," and emphasized that disagreeing with government policy and expressing dissent are central to American democracy.

Neera Tanden, the think tank's president and CEO, issued a statement calling the threatened lawsuit "baseless" and framing it as an attempt to silence independent research. "A fundamental protection of the First Amendment is to allow for the publication of facts and analysis that are contrary to the arguments and claims of any administration," she said. She added that disputes over public policy should be resolved through robust debate, not threats or intimidation.

Legal experts say Trump faces a steep climb if he actually files suit. Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Law School and CBS News legal contributor, explained that public figures suing for defamation must prove the defendant knew a statement was false or acted with reckless disregard for its truth. "It's very unlikely that a dispute about statistics would give rise to a defamation claim," she noted. The president would also need to demonstrate that the statements were reasonably understood as being about him personally, rather than criticism of his administration more broadly.

The threat is not Trump's first foray into using litigation as a tool against perceived opponents. His history of filing suits against institutions and individuals he views as political adversaries is well documented. Whether this particular case moves forward remains to be seen, but the confrontation highlights a fundamental tension: the administration's desire to control its narrative versus the constitutional protections that allow independent researchers to publish findings the government finds unwelcome.