Former Playboy model Karen McDougal is suing Fox News, saying Tucker Carlson defamed her by falsely accusing her of extorting Trump

CNN

Former Playboy model Karen McDougal during an interview on CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.

• Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who claims to have had an affair with President Donald Trump, is suing Fox News for defamation, The New York Times reported.
• Specifically, McDougal's suit says Carlson defamed her last year by saying on his show that she "approached Donald Trump and threatened to ruin his career and humiliate his family if he doesn't give them money."
• In a statement to CNN's Oliver Darcy, Fox said they planned to "vigorously defend Tucker Carlson against these meritless claims."
• McDougal's reported affair with Trump, which she says took place in 2006, was at the center of a 2018 federal court case involving Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen.
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Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who claims to have had an affair with President Donald Trump, is suing Fox News for defamation.

The New York Times reported on Thursday that McDougal's lawsuit, filed in New York, named Fox News itself as the defendant and claims host Tucker Carlson defamed her by asserting she had extorted Trump.

Specifically, McDougal's suit says Carlson defamed her last year by saying on his show that she "approached Donald Trump and threatened to ruin his career and humiliate his family if he doesn't give them money."

As The Times noted, defamation suits against media companies are notoriously difficult for plaintiffs to win, and are often dismissed by judges before they can go to trial.

In a statement to CNN's Oliver Darcy, Fox said they planned to "vigorously defend Tucker Carlson against these meritless claims."

McDougal's reported affair with Trump, which she says took place in 2006 while he was married to his third and current wife Melania Trump, was at the center of a 2018 federal court case involving Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen.

In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight federal charges in the Southern District of New York, including tax fraud, bank fraud, and violating federal campaign finance law by making a contribution to the Trump campaign in the form of a $130,000 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels - far over the legal limit of $2,7000 - to buy her silence on an alleged affair she had with Trump.

Cohen also pleaded guilty to making an unauthorized corporate contribution to American Media Inc., the owner of the tabloid newspaper The National Enquirer, in exchange for them killing unflattering stories about Trump's alleged affairs weeks before the 2016 election.

In a practice known as a "catch and kill," Cohen paid AMI to purchase the rights to McDougal's story for $150,000 but never run it, protecting Trump from negative press coverage.

The former Trump lawyer is currently serving a 36-month prison sentence on those charges and an additional charge of lying to Congress brought by the former special counsel Robert Mueller's office.

The Times reported that McDougal's suit also points to Carlson describing the "catch and kill" payment as a "ransom" and "a classic case of extortion" in a December 2018 broadcast of his show.

"No matter which version of Trump's statements one believes, Trump never once claimed that he was extorted," McDougal's attorney said in the lawsuit, according to The Times.

Read more:

Newly unsealed court documents appear to contradict Trump's denials that he knew of the hush-money payments made to Stormy Daniels before the election

Trump was reportedly in the room when Michael Cohen was discussing hush-money payments with the publisher of the National Enquirer

Inside the wild tabloid world of payoffs and porn stars that snared Michael Cohen

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