{"id":1034108,"date":"2021-11-19T20:58:48","date_gmt":"2021-11-20T01:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1034108"},"modified":"2021-11-19T20:58:51","modified_gmt":"2021-11-20T01:58:51","slug":"pollak-joe-biden-can-be-sued-for-defaming-kyle-rittenhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pollak-joe-biden-can-be-sued-for-defaming-kyle-rittenhouse\/","title":{"rendered":"Pollak: Joe Biden Can Be Sued for Defaming Kyle Rittenhouse"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fpollak-joe-biden-can-be-sued-for-defaming-kyle-rittenhouse%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1034108&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1236464930-640x335-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">President Joe Biden could face a civil defamation suit from newly-acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse for calling him a \u201cwhite supremacist\u201d last year \u2014 without evidence, and before Biden was able to enjoy the immunities of presidential office.<\/p>\n<p>Rittenhouse was, by then, a \u201cpublic figure\u201d for the purposes of defamation law, and would have to show that any defendant acted with \u201cactual malice\u201d \u2014 that is, with reckless disregard for the truth. He could arguably do so for Biden\u2019s false statement.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>When Biden <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2020\/09\/30\/joe-biden-claims-without-evidence-kyle-rittenhouse-is-a-white-supremacist\/\">made<\/a> the now-infamous, and false, claim about Rittenhouse at the end of last September, more than a month had gone by since the Aug. 25, 2020 shootings for which Rittenhouse had been charged within days. Even then it was clear that no evidence existed to substantiate the media\u2019s initial claim that he was a \u201cwhite supremacist\u201d \u2014 a claim his legal counsel at the time <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/\">denied<\/a> on Aug. 28, 2020, and reiterated in a subsequent interview with&nbsp;<i>Breitbart News Sunday&nbsp;<\/i>on SiriusXM Patriot 125.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>Typically, presidents are immune from civil lawsuits for torts alleged to have taken place during their time in office. But as the infamous case of Paula Jones\u2019s sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton showed, presidents are not immune from suit for torts committed prior to their taking office. Biden could therefore be sued by Rittenhouse. While Rittenhouse has yet not said he will sue, his mother recently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2021\/11\/12\/kyle-rittenhouse-mom-blasts-biden-for-defaming-son-as-white-supremacist\/\">said<\/a> explicitly that Biden had \u201cdefamed\u201d her son \u2014 perhaps a sign of a lawsuit to come.<\/p>\n<p>Rittenhouse\u2019s acquittal will only add to the evidentiary ammunition \u2014 especially as prosecutors never once produced a shred of evidence during the trial that he had any white supremacist ties or racial motivations.<\/p>\n<p>Before the verdict was delivered in Rittenhouse\u2019s trial, Biden compounded the damage, with his press secretary <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2021\/11\/15\/white-house-condemns-vigilantes-as-kyle-rittenhouse-trial-wraps-up\/\">referring<\/a> to the defendant as a \u201cvigilante.\u201d And Biden has yet to apologize, instead <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2021\/11\/19\/joe-biden-angry-concerned-rittenhouse-jury-verdict-calls-peaceful-protests\/\">saying<\/a> he was \u201cangry and concerned\u201d by the verdict.<\/p>\n<p><em>Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of <\/em>Breitbart News Sunday<em> on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Neither-Free-nor-Fair-Presidential-ebook\/dp\/B08PNN54BB\">Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election<\/a>. His recent book, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.centerstreet.com\/titles\/joel-b-pollak\/red-november\/9781546099840\/\">RED NOVEMBER<\/a><em>, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at <a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/joelpollak\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\">@joelpollak<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Joe Biden could face a civil defamation suit from newly-acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse for calling him a \u201cwhite supremacist\u201d last year \u2014 without evidence, and before Biden was able to &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1034108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1034108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1034108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1034108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1034108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}