"SID VICIOUS" BLUMENTHAL LOSES HIS CASE AGAINST MATT DRUDGE!

Clinton's Aid "Sid Vicious" Blumenthal Loses His Case Against Matt Drudge!

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX TUESDAY MAY 01, 2001 16:01:01 ET XXXXX

MAY DAY: LAWSUIT AGAINST DRUDGE DROPPED; BLUMENTHAL PAYS CASH TO GET OUT!

Former Clinton White House aide Sidney Blumenthal today dropped his $30 million lawsuit against the DRUDGE REPORT and editor Matt Drudge after agreeing to a settlement which requires Blumenthal to pay cash to Drudge's attorneys.

"This frivolous lawsuit, which was approved by a sitting president and vice president of the United States, comes to its wimpy conclusion with Mr. Blumenthal, I repeat, Mr. Blumenthal cutting a check," Drudge said. "In return, I pay him nothing, and have agreed not to countersue."

The 100+ page suit made front page headlines worldwide and was considered a "test case" for the development of Internet libel law.

After nearly four years of litigation, Blumenthal rushed to settle the case when Drudge filed a motion to dismiss the suit for lack of merit and to recover attorneys' fees.

Sounding a personal May Day cry, Blumenthal went to the courthouse today to sign settlement papers and withdraw the case.

Through twists and turns, from a battle over jurisdiction to a clash over the privilege to protect confidential sources [Federal Judge Paul Friedman ruled early in the case that Drudge "was not a reporter, news gatherer or journalist"], the lawsuit pitted the White House against an individual reporter.

"This result vindicates our position that, in defamation cases, the First Amendment's protection extends to individuals operating in new mediums, no less than to traditional journalists in corporate newsrooms," said Drudge's lead attorney Manny Klausner.

"I am forever in debt to my attorneys, to all those who contributed to the DRUDGE REPORT legal defense fund and to David Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture," said Drudge.

"It was a Clinton-approved lawsuit, which was filed by Clinton's right-hand man, being heard before a Clinton-appointed judge. But all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't bring the DRUDGE REPORT to an untimely end!"

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And here is another article about it.

Clinton Aide Settles Libel Suit Against Matt Drudge -- at a Cost

The Washington Post, Nov 16, 2000

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 2, 2001; Page C01

Nearly four years after filing a much-ballyhooed $30 million libel suit against cybergossip Matt Drudge, former White House aide Sidney Blumenthal settled the case yesterday for something less than he once demanded.

In fact, he agreed to pay Drudge's side $2,500 for travel costs associated with the lawsuit.

The denouement in federal court in Washington amounts to a legal victory for Drudge -- even though he long ago apologized for and retracted the 1997 report that falsely suggested that Blumenthal had beaten his wife, Jacqueline, who was also a Clinton White House aide.

Drudge said yesterday that "with a Clinton-approved lawsuit, a Clinton-appointed judge and Clinton's right-hand man bringing it, I didn't know how it was going to come out. The irony that Blumenthal has to pay me to let him out of a lawsuit he brought says it all from my end."

But Blumenthal said that "suing Drudge was the right thing to do because it was the only way to make absolutely clear that his story was a malicious and reckless lie.

"Unfortunately, he is backed by unlimited funds from political supporters who use a tax-exempt foundation. He'd like to see the lawsuit go on endlessly. Bad publicity for him is good for his kind of business. Drudge has placed enough burden on our family for four years and we're moving on with our lives."

Blumenthal said the suit has cost him tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. He said he agreed to pay $2,500 to Drudge's Los Angeles attorney, Manny Klausner, as "nuisance value" because Klausner had traveled to Washington for a deposition of writer David Brock that was canceled. Klausner is associated with the libertarian-oriented Individual Rights Foundation, which has picked up all of Drudge's costs through a legal defense fund.

What was once a high-profile lawsuit nearly expired from inactivity. After being prodded by the judge in the case to demonstrate some progress, Blumenthal's side recently issued subpoenas to two dozen people -- including this reporter, whose summons over The Washington Post's initial account of the matter was dropped -- but never took the depositions.

On April 19, Blumenthal's lawyer, William McDaniel, sent a one-line e-mail to Klausner: "Just put an end to this."

Since "both sides distrusted each other," as Drudge put it, the case was not settled until Blumenthal signed the agreement at 4 p.m. yesterday before a federal magistrate, with Drudge participating from Miami by fax and conference call.

Drudge has made great political hay out of the fact that Blumenthal consulted his White House superiors at the time -- namely, President Clinton and Vice President Gore -- before proceeding with the private suit.

The lawsuit raised potentially groundbreaking issues about electronic journalism because Blumenthal and his wife also sued America Online, which carried Drudge's column. AOL argued that it was not acting as a publisher because it simply reprinted the column rather than supervising or editing it. A judge later agreed, severing AOL from the case.

In his apology, a day after posting the unfounded rumor, Drudge told The Post that "someone was using me to try to go after" the Blumenthal story and that "this is a case of using me to broadcast dirty laundry. I think I've been had." Drudge had not called Blumenthal for comment, saying he didn't know how to reach him.

The mistake brought Drudge, then earning $35,000 a year, a major dose of national publicity, five months before he was the first to publish details of the Monica Lewinsky story.

Blumenthal dismissed as "ridiculous" Drudge's suggestion that he abandoned the suit because the other side planned to depose a new witness who had derogatory information about him. "It's a continuation of the libel," Blumenthal said. "Too bad he doesn't know what the line of decency is. I hope I've injected in some small way some element of caution in those who would imitate Drudge's methods."

Drudge acknowledged that the litigation had affected his reputation. "My name became synonymous with the lawsuit," he said. But, he said, "the First Amendment protects mistakes. Surely Sidney Blumenthal can understand that. The great thing about this medium I'm working in is that you can fix things fast."

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2001 14:06:21 ET XXXXX

AFTER YEARS OF COVERAGE: BIG MEDIA SILENT ON BLUMENTHAL'S CASH SETTLEMENT IN DRUDGE CASE

'Play up accusations, and when they aren't true, don't mention it.' --

The new NEWYORKTIMESWALLSTREETJOURNALUSATODAYLOSANGELESTIMES motto soon to be hanging on the Newseum wall.

The news that former Clinton White House aide Sidney Blumenthal dropped his $30 million four-year litigation against the DRUDGE REPORT and editor Matt Drudge after agreeing to a settlement whichrequires Blumenthal to pay cash to Drudge's attorneysfailed to grab the attention of big media's elite editors and reporters.

After exhaustive coverage of the case, nearly 3700 breathless stories are filed on the Lexis-Nexis database about Blumenthal vs. Drudge, the nation's major outlets stopped the presses.

No news is good news, and in this case, good news is no news if it is good news for Drudge.

MURRAY: NO HURRY

WALL STREET JOURNAL Washington Bureau Chief Alan J. Murray, when reached by telephone Thursday, exhibited a spell of confusion when asked why his paper has not issued a follow-up to its Page 1 above-the-fold multi-thousand word dissection on "Drudge's troubles".

"There is such a level of built-in irresponsibility in everything he says and does," the JOURNAL quoted 'First Amendment' protector Floyd Abrams in its Page 1 rant. "If one were rewriting libel law today, one would try to write it to assure that the false statements of Matt Drudge were treated as libel."

The WALL STREET JOURNAL and Murray's splash headline 'INTERNET BAD BOY HAS HIS DAY IN COURT' has been left as the paper's only coverage, without any follow-up or reporting on the bad boy's good outcome.

"I don't know. I don't know," Murray said repeatedly when asked why the paper failed to inform its readers of the case's outcome, let alone Blumenthal retreating, checkbook in hand.

Murray conceded he was aware of the withdrawal of the case by Blumenthal but didn't know why the paper had not followed up its Page 1 splash, which was assigned by Murray himself.

"Call me back at 5 o'clock and I'll try to have some answers," Murray assured, proving once and for all that news moves at its own sweet pace in America's sacred newsrooms.

Nearly 72-hours after the case had been settled, and word spread across the world's wires, Alan J. Murray -- was simply not in a hurry.

Over at CNN the Drudge/Blumenthal legal battle was mentioned 24-times in various rotations through the years. Blumenthal's suit was played up on LARRY KING LIVE, INSIDE POLITICS, RELIABLE SOURCES, CAPITAL GANG [Saturday and Sunday], CROSSFIRE, TALKBACK LIVE, CNN & CO., MONEYLINE, LIVE EVENT/SPECIAL and alas BURDEN OF PROOF, which fell silent when Blumenthal's burden in court could not be met.

CNN's INSIDE POLITICS did a 9-second detailed summary on the case's ending late Wednesday still asserting that Drudge's initial report, which was at the center of the lawsuit, was 'a reckless and malicious lie.' Quoting Blumenthal, of course, but ignoring completely any Drudge response.

BURDEN OF PROOF TV presenter Greta Van Susteren had been on the receiving end of many a Blumenthal leak while he was at the White House. At the height of litigation, Van Susteren hosted Blumenthal's pitbull attorney William McDaniel and gave him the forum to declare: "Drudge will have to give up his sources!"

Van Susteren has yet to inform her viewers that Drudge never had to give up his sources.

In the end it was Mr. Blumenthal and Mr. McDaniel, in fact, who had to give it up.

LARRY KINGLIVERELIABLESOURCESCAPITALGANGCROSSFIRETALKBACKLIVECNN&COMONEYLINELIVE EVENT/SPECIAL viewers are left with the impression that the slam-dunk case against Drudge is still ongoing.

USA TODAY, which featured ten stories referencing Blumenthal's case against Drudge, did not even run a single line in one of their clever 50-state (and District of Columbia) news summaries.

After headlines that blared 'Drudge Dredges Media Mistake', 'World Wide Web Net's Future Raises Fears', and a photo of Matt Drudge Page 1 above-the-fold, the nation's most circulated newspaper stopped circulating.

The LOS ANGELES TIMES featured five stories referencing the lawsuit, including a four-thousand word cover story in its Sunday magazine headlined: 'Matt Drudge Has Been Accused of Recklessness and Libel'.

Not a word. Not a period. Not a comma out of Times Mirror Square about the vindication of Drudge.

STRANGE JUSTICE

NEW YORK TIMES Washington bureau chief Jill Abramson said Thursday the case filed in a Washington D.C. Federal Court "has not been a Washington story."

Although reporters who are housed in the NEW YORK TIMES Washington office have written about the case, Abramson explanied they report elsewhere in the NEW YORK TIMES maze of command.

So the paper that reported every accusation alleged by Blumenthal -- 6-times over -- finds itself in a bureaucratic snafu when it comes to the case's grand finale.

NYT businessmedialegal editor David Smith, who is said to have green-lit most of the TIMES' coverage of Drudge [Smith unleashed media gossip columnist Felicity Barringer to write a particularly nasty case mop-up in the Summer of '98], when reached on Thursday was curiously out of words.

When asked directly why he has not assigned anyone to write about the Drudge win, a flustered Smith repeated a 'no comment' mantra.

NEW YORK TIMES readers have been left with the impression that the lawsuit against Drudge is ongoing and will continue forever until Mr. Blumenthal is victorious.

"What the NEW YORK TIMES is doing with its sin of omission is no doubt a form of libel of its own, corporate news slander of the highest degree," said Professor Emeritus Andrew Breitbart of the Cashmere Institute of Media Studies.

"How does Drudge begin to clear his name with the NEW YORK TIMES readership? It appears there is little recourse with 'The Paper of Record.'"

Take it to the web, young man.

Take it to the free and wonderful web.

* * * * *

EDITORS NOTE:

After this dispatch hit the web, Matt Drudge received e-mails from the NY TIMES and the WALL STREET JOURNAL, both now rushing to do stories on the Blumenthal cash settlement:

Date: Thu, 3 May 2001 16:24:17 EDT Subject: ny times article on blumenthal suit To: drudge@drudgereport.com X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Windows 95 sub 123 Matt: I'm doing a piece for The Times on the settlement of Blumenthal's libel suit against you. I'd like to talk to you. Do you have a new number? The one I have rings without answering. Felicity Barringer X X X X X Date: Thu, 3 May 2001 15:12:21 -0400 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)

Blumenthal Bites the Dust
Big time.

Mr. Ledeen is the holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute.
May 4, 2001 10:30 a.m.

To get a sense of the magnitude of Sidney Blumenthal's humiliation at the hands of Matt Drudge and his puckish counsel, Manny Klausner, you have to remember how most of the deep thinkers had immediately left Drudge for dead. The Blumenthals unleashed their righteous indignation from the lofty reaches of their White House offices, launching subpoenas with gay abandon, threatening Drudge and his friends with quick and violent decimation. They picked their lawyer carefully, a pompous bully named McDaniel, once of the great Williams & Connelly juggernaut in Washington, now relocated a few miles away in Baltimore. Their public posture and their private threats suggested a confidence verging on certainty, and when their intended victims asked for common decency or normal good faith, they responded with the backs of their hands.

When my wife Barbara and I were summoned to testify, we asked that the session be open to the press (the alleged object of Blumenthal's concern). No way. We asked if a pool reporter could attend. Forget it. How about our children? Nyet.

Once in reach of their preposterous questions, we were asked to identify any and all members of the press (the alleged object of Blumenthal's concern) with whom we had discussed the Sidney matter. Virtually all of them were subsequently subpoenaed for interrogation. It was a farcical replay of Sidney's cameo appearance on the steps of Kenneth Starr's courthouse, when he lied to the assembled journalists, accusing Starr's prosecutors of asking him about his contacts with the press (then, as always, the alleged object of Blumenthal's concern).

The suit against Drudge was never about "damage" to the Blumenthals' reputation; the accusation that Sidney beat his wife was quickly withdrawn, accompanied by a full apology (a lot better than most public figures get under like circumstances). The Blumenthal/Drudge skirmish was part of the Clinton campaign to intimidate administration critics by any and all means. It goes under the name of the politics of personal destruction.

That Blumenthal despised the very idea of a free press was clear from the outset, and became clearer still as the case dragged on. When we had the audacity to post our depositions on the Internet, Blumenthal was outraged, and demanded that the judge put a stop to such outrageous behavior. Imagine! Someone had the gall to actually provide the public with something they had every right to know.

In addition to trying to frighten the opponents of his administration, Blumenthal had other, more esoteric objectives. Along with Hillary Clinton, Sidney seems to be one of the handful of true believers who actually embraced the notion of the "vast right-wing conspiracy," and he no doubt hoped that he would be able to document its wicked ways once he got its chief practitioners on the witness stand, all sworn to tell the truth. Thus, the repeated questions about people with whom we spoke. Thus, the widening circle of subpoenas. Even as he fades away in the direction of a softly padded room, Sidney insists he was done in by a conspiracy: There were just too many people prepared to finance Drudge's defense.

Sidney's bad joke has now ended, and we will now have to wait for his White House memoirs to see his manic vision in full detail. Not to worry, we can bear the delay. For now, we can revel in the refreshing spectacle of the full exposure of yet another factotum of the Clinton era. The ill-considered pardons punctured Bill's balloon; Sidney's retreat collapsed his.

But that is not the end of the story, for we must still deal with the alleged object of Blumenthal's concern: the press. Precious few journalists had the stomach to write the obvious truth about this sorry matter, and some very illustrious defenders of the press (Floyd Abrams, to name one) proclaimed the suit a noble cause, and Drudge a worthy target. That is no small matter, because it shows once again that a large part of the press is so thoroughly politicized (or, if you prefer, intimidated), that suppression of the truth is accepted as an ordinary occurrence.

So let us toast two unconventional, and precious characters: Matt Drudge and Manny Klausner. Unwilling to be cowed, patient to a fault, full of good grace and good humor, they live to fight another day. For which we are most grateful.

IT WASN'T JUST DRUDGE

By Dick Morris
NYPOST.COM

May 8, 2001 -- SPIN, counterattack, discrediting witnesses and outright lying were part of the Clinton administration's orchestrated attack on dissident journalists. Beneath these tactics lay chilling attempts to use the legal system to punish reporters who got too near the truth.

The most visible attempt at using libel suits to frighten the press was the $30 million lawsuit by former White House staffer Sydney Blumenthal against Internet journalist Matt Drudge.

Drudge corrected the story immediately after publication. In most jurisdictions, that is enough to preclude a libel suit. But Blumenthal, with the support of then-President Clinton, filed a lawsuit anyway.

Four years later, with Clinton out of office, Blumenthal has suddenly agreed to drop the suit, and even to pay $2,500 to the reporter's lawyers. This sudden willingness to walk away shows the full mendacity of the litigation. It was designed to hamper a persistent Clinton critic.

It worked. Drudge was dragged through the media mill, exposed to (by his count) 3,700 separate articles discussing the suit and speculating on the reporter's culpability. CNN mentioned the suit in 24 different stories; USA Today reported on it 10 times. The avalanche of negative publicity forced Drudge to play defense, to the detriment of his ability to report on Clinton.

I felt the hammer blows of legal intimidation personally when I received two threatening letters from lawyers for Clinton operatives as a result of my commentary critical of the administration on the Fox News Channel and in this newspaper.

The first came from a lawyer representing Jack Palladino, a private detective who was hired by the '92 Clinton campaign to dig up dirt on women who were likely to accuse Clinton of having sex with them. I called him a member of Clinton's secret police; his attorney demanded a retraction and apology. A few months later, I criticized Pentagon employee Ken Bacon for improperly releasing Linda Tripp's personnel file, an act U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lambreth later found to be a privacy violation. I got a letter, this time from Bacon's lawyer, demanding a retraction.

In both cases, the threats were dropped when my attorney provided full documentation for the statements I had made. Neither a retraction nor an apology was needed.

These suits and threats of suit hold reporters of modest means at bay. When public officials drop these suits after they have served their intimidating purpose, thus admitting their lack of merit, the public should note how the free press has been used and abused.

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