Donald Trump has initiated civil proceedings against a pollster who had found him losing in early November by a few points in Iowa and caused a thunderclap a few days before the presidential election finally won by the Republican, including in Iowa.
• Also read: “Prepare for the worst”: under Trump, American families threatened by possible deportations
This very unusual complaint was filed Monday evening in a court in this state in the central United States, and targets Ann Selzer – a former pollster specialist in Iowa, known until now for her reliability – as well as her employers, the Des Moines Register and the parent company of this local daily, Gannett.
The procedure seeks to “bring accountability for the blatant electoral interference” committed in favor of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, argues the complaint consulted by AFP.
The former and future American president accuses the pollster of having “invented the numbers” showing a three-point victory for Kamala Harris in Iowa, when he ultimately won this rural state by 13 points.
“In my opinion, it was fraud, and it was election interference,” Donald Trump said Monday during a press conference. “She’s a very good pollster, she knew what she was doing,” he added.
The president-elect is seeking damages.
Asked by AFP, Ann Selzer’s services declared that the pollster had “no comment” on the complaint against her.
Lark-Marie Anton, a spokesperson for the Des Moines Register, said in a statement that the newspaper had already acknowledged that the poll in question did not “reflect the final margin of President Trump’s victory in the election in Iowa » and that the newspaper had already published in-depth data on this poll.
“We maintain our work on the subject and believe that this complaint is unfounded,” she added.
Legal scholar Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, commented on the proceedings on his Election Law blog, saying he “don’t expect it to go very far.”
Anna Diakun, a lawyer at Columbia University’s Knight Institute, denounced the lawsuits and urged the court to “swiftly dismiss” them.
This complaint is nothing more than “an attempt to undermine public expression and freedom of the press, and to intimidate and gag those whom Donald Trump perceives as political enemies,” she declared. in a press release from the New York institute, which defends freedom of expression.
Since his arrival on the American political scene in 2015, Donald Trump has always been extremely suspicious of the media, recently accusing them of being “bloodsuckers” and “corrupt”.
On Monday, Donald Trump declared that he intended to launch other proceedings against media outlets, notably the CBS News show 60 Minutes, which he accuses of having manipulated a response from Kamala Harris in favor of the Democrat.
