Gawker out of business professional#
Hogan (real name: Terry Bollea) was a retired professional wrestler who had become famous for flexing his muscles in center-ring, shredding his ripped tee-shirt, and occasionally touting his sexual abilities in promotions and interviews. When Hulk Hogan sued Gawker Media for invasion of privacy, it first seemed like a battle of loudmouths, with nothing much at stake other than entertainment value.
Gawker out of business full#
Even so, the president would not have known the full story of the Gawker case, which only became public with the recent release of Ryan Holiday’s fascinating book, Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue. Surely aware of Harder’s success, Trump also retained him in the Stormy Daniels litigation. A year earlier, Harder had been the lead plaintiff’s attorney in a spectacular lawsuit brought by Hulk Hogan against Gawker Media, which resulted in a massive verdict that propelled Gawker into bankruptcy. Rather than rely on a fixer, like Michael Cohen, or a fixture, like Rudy Giuliani, Trump chose Charles Harder, a Los Angeles attorney who made his bones bringing media companies to their knees. Trump must have realized that even as president he could not prevent the publication of Fire and Fury, but his choice of counsel was inspired. Seeking to control the damage-or perhaps just change the narrative-Trump retained an attorney to send an eleven-page “cease and desist” letter to Wolff and his publisher, Henry Holt & Co., threatening suit for defamation, invasion of privacy, tortious interference with contract, and various other causes of action. Leaked excerpts of the book showed Trump’s administration as full of “chaos and dysfunction,” with advisors and family members routinely sniping at one another while competing for the fleeting attention of their uninformed boss. President Trump has always been infuriated by bad press, and never more than when he learned of last January's impending publication of Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.
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