OTTAWA — Conservative media personality Jordan Peterson says he’s looking into legal action after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this week that Peterson is receiving funding from Russian state-owned media outlet RT.
Trudeau made the comments under oath during his lengthy testimony on Wednesday at the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference and did not provide any evidence for them.
Peterson told the National Post he has never taken Russian money, “not ever in the past and not now.”
It’s a very serious accusation
Jordan Peterson
“It’s a very serious accusation,” said Peterson, in a Thursday interview with the Post. “You should have done your bloody homework and if you’re going to make accusations, you should have at least got them right. I don’t think it’s reasonable for the prime minister of the country to basically label me a traitor and I don’t find it amusing.”
Peterson said he is looking into a defamation lawsuit against the prime minister, but said these lawsuits are often a “losing game,” even if he has a reasonable chance of winning it.
“I know what lawsuits are like and they’re a pain, and I’m not interested in being burdened down with that sort of pain, practically speaking. But by the same token, how about you don’t defame me when you’re the prime minister, especially stupidly,” said Peterson.
“I’ve been talking to my family about (whether) I have a moral obligation to go after him for defamation. He’s not like my neighbour, he’s the prime minister,” he said.
The prime minister’s office declined to comment on Friday.
In his testimony, Trudeau seemed to be referencing a recent announcement from the U.S. government that it was filing money-laundering charges against employees of the Russian state media network RT for trying to influence the presidential election by paying unwitting right-wing personalities.
MPs in Canada have voted to study the alleged Russian ploy, but Peterson has never been connected to it.
“How I got dragged into this, I don’t know, because I haven’t been implicated in that even peripherally, but I don’t think Trudeau is informed enough to understand what the hell’s going on, period, but certainly not in the broader social media space,” said Peterson.
Peterson said it was especially galling to be accused of taking Russian money, because he has been sounding the alarm about foreign interference in the North American political discourse.
In fact, a week before Trudeau’s accusations, Peterson published a two-hour podcast exploring “how bad actors and foreign powers are manipulating American thought,” particularly singling out Russian, China and Iran.
“I’m just not involved in this scandalous issue with Russia at all, not a bit. It’s worse than that, because I’ve been informing myself as to foreign media manipulation, in detail,” said Peterson. “So, it’s one thing to go after an enemy, let’s say, if you’re going to cast idiot aspersions, but it’s really not very bright to do it to someone who’s actually working to solve the bloody problem that you’re commenting on.”
The prime minister also launched a surprising partisan attack on Wednesday at Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre during his testimony at the foreign interference inquiry. Trudeau alleged that several current and former Conservative parliamentarians are either engaged in or targets of foreign interference, while lambasting Poilievre for refusing to get top-level security clearance.
Poilievre responded on Wednesday by accusing Trudeau of “lying” and demanded the prime minister release the unreleased names of parliamentarians alleged by a review committee to have wittingly or unwittingly acted on behalf of a foreign country.
National Post
[email protected]
Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.
Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.