Trump criticizes suspended ABC News reporter, suggests people should sue the network

AP Photo/Jonathan Bachman

President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Pensacola, Fla., Friday, Dec. 8, 2017.

• President Donald Trump threw rhetorical jabs at suspended ABC News reporter Brian Ross during a campaign rally in Florida on Friday night.
• Ross was suspended last weekend over a "serious error" in his report on former national security adviser Michael Flynn's guilty plea in the Russia investigation.
• Trump suggested people should sue ABC News, because the US stock market tumbled after the network's report aired last Friday morning.

During a campaign speech in Pensacola, Florida, on Friday night, President Donald Trump criticized a suspended ABC News reporter over a report on his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Trump called Brian Ross a "fraudster" for reporting that Trump, as a candidate in the 2016 election, directed Flynn to make contact with the Russians. ABC News corrected the report later the same day, issued a statement on the correction, and suspended Ross a day later.

In its corrected report, ABC News said it was after Trump became the president-elect that he told Flynn to contact Russian officials. The original story - which was part of a broader report on Flynn's guilty plea in the ongoing Russia investigation, and his promise to testify against Trump - caused the stock market to tumble last Friday.

"He drove the stock market down 350 points in minutes," Trump said at the Friday night rally. "When you think of it, you know what he cost people? And I said to everybody 'get yourself a lawyer and sue ABC News.'"

Several other media outlets have had to issue corrections this week in stories about the Russia investigation, which was launched in response to Russia's meddling in the 2016 US election and to determine whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin to help get Trump elected.