Prominent right-wing personality Laura Loomer has filed a $150-million defamation lawsuit against Bill Maher and HBO for suggesting she “has committed adultery with President Donald Trump”
In a statement shared with Postmedia, Loomer’s attorney Larry Klayman called Maher a “known Trump hater.”
“Ms. Loomer has been a strong advocate for President Donald Trump in her profession as a conservative activist and investigative journalist over the past decade,” Klayman wrote. “Ms. Loomer promotes individual freedoms, strong national security, secure and closed borders, and constitutional conservative values generally, all of which are in league with President Trump’s pro-American policies and agenda.
“Accordingly, she became a target of Bill Maher and Home Box Office, both of whom advocate for Democrat Party officials and values. They attacked Ms. Loomer with defamatory statements as a vehicle to harm President Trump and his campaign for the presidency of the United States, and to harm Ms. Loomer’s credibility.”
The legal filing quotes jokes that Maher made on the Sept. 13 edition of Real Time on HBO in which he said: “I think maybe Laura Loomer is in an arranged relationship to affect the election because she’s very close to Trump. She’s 31, looks like his type.
“We did an editorial here a few years ago … it was basically, who’s Trump f***ing? Because, I said, you know, it’s not nobody. He’s been a dog for too long, and it’s not Melania. I think we may have our answer this week. I think it might be Laura Loomer.”
Klayman called it an “outrage that Maher and Home Box Office would try to destroy a professional woman in their zeal to harm President Trump.”
He went on to add that he asked Maher to retract his statement and “publicly apologize” on Real Time for his comments about Loomer and give her a chance to appear on the show, which he refused.
In the lawsuit, Loomer contends that giving her name as the answer to “who’s Trump f***ing?” amounts to him “falsely and maliciously” implying she “committed adultery with Donald Trump.”
In the lawsuit, Klayman maintains that the comment “is reasonably understood by any reasonable viewer as Defendant Maher making a factual statement of objectively verifiable fact of and concerning Ms. Loomer.”
Back in 2013, Trump sued Maher after an appearance on The Tonight Show, in which the comedian offered to donate $5 million to a charity of Donald’s choice if he could prove his father wasn’t an orangutan.
“The colour of his hair and the colour of an orange orangutan is the only two things in nature of the same colour,” Maher said.
“I hope it’s not true, but unless he comes up with proof … I’m willing to offer $5 million to Donald Trump that he can donate to a charity of his choice – Hair Club for Men; The Institute for Incorrigible Douche-bag-ery. Whatever charity.”
The joke was a dig at Trump’s relentless efforts to uncover facts about then-President Barack Obama’s heritage. In 2012, Trump promised to give $5 million to the politician’s favourite organization if he released his passport records and proved beyond doubt he’s an American citizen.
Trump launched a $5-million legal action after providing Maher with his New York birth certificate that proved his father wasn’t an ape. But he dropped his suit eight weeks later.
In his statement to Postmedia, Klayman said Maher’s quip about Loomer “put her at great risk.”
“Neither Ms. Loomer nor I will entertain politically motivated and unfounded and malicious defamation and threats,” he wrote. “Thus, both Maher and Home Box Office will now have to answer to a jury of their peers. When this is over, Maher, the self-styled political pundit, and his Hollywood network, HBO, will not be laughing.”
Maher has not publicly responded to Loomer’s lawsuit.
[related_links /