Trump threatens to sue Center for American Progress, demands retraction of National Guard crime report

(Central News Agency, Washington, 21st Comprehensive Foreign News Report) The Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, recently issued a report stating that US President Trump’s deployment of National Guardsmen in many cities across the United States has not reduced crime as Trump claimed. Trump demanded that the think tank withdraw its report or else he would sue.

The Associated Press reported that Trump asked the Center for American Progress to issue a statement retracting the report before get off work today, otherwise he may face a $5 billion lawsuit. The center declined to retract the report.

Neera Tanden, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, said in a statement that the lawsuit "is a clear attempt to silence us. We will neither back down nor give in in the face of this situation."

The report, released on July 13, criticized the Trump administration for attributing the historic drop to its own policies at a time when violent crime rates were already declining. The report concluded that Trump's deployment of the National Guard "has had no measurable impact on violent crime trends."

Tandon said the study was based on the center's analysis of crime data and that the findings were "just hard for the Trump administration to face."

Trump's lawyer Alejandro Brito sent a letter on the 17th saying that the center should "immediately withdraw its false, malicious and defamatory remarks against President Trump." The New York Times first disclosed the contents of the letter.