Sarah Palin Threatens to Sue ‘Rogue’ Book Publisher

abcnews.com ^ | Sept. 26, 2011 | Jon Karl & Shushannah walshe

[Al B.]

Sarah Palin’s family attorney John Tiemessen has written a letter to Maya Mavjee, the publisher of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, that Palin may sue her, the company, and the book’s author Joe McGinniss “for knowingly publishing false statements” in his book released last week, “The Rogue,” ABC News has learned.

READ THE ENTIRE LETTER HERE

The book was widely panned by critics for using unnamed sources to criticize Palin and her family. Tiemessen cites an email they have access to in which McGinniss writes that attorneys from Crown Publishing told him “nothing I can cite other than my own reporting rises above the level of tawdry gossip. The proof is always just around the corner, but that is a corner nobody has been able to turn” and that McGinniss “ran out of time” to sufficiently source the book.

A source close to the Palins tells ABC News that the “Palins are fighting back and demanding answers from Random House.”

“Random House is at the top of the food chain and published a book based upon acknowledged unsubstantiated gossip,” the source said. “The revealing email is key as evidence of this defamatory approach to politics through proxies.”

Tiemessen writes in the letter that the email “clearly describes the fact that Mr. McGinniss researched and investigated many false and scurrilous allegations, and concluded that there was absolutely no evidence anywhere backing these allegations.”

Palin’s attorney writes that it is “malicious” for Crown to publish the book when it has proof McGinniss and Crown “were fully aware the statements in the book were false, intended to be false, and were intended to harm.”

[mockingbyrd]

Taste My Nightstick

Dude you forgot the best part...."BOOM...taste my nightstick!"

[trumandogz]

Palin would have almost no chance of winning in court.

Just run for president, Sarah.

[trisham]

Good for her.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

[org.whodat]

Go for it, they crossed the line, take their money.

[BreitbartSentMe]

Off to get some popcorn, BRB..

[Sarah Barracuda]

Even Keith Olbermann and NPR refuse to let that dirtbag on their shows. They know that the book is full of lies that McGinnis made up in his sick twisted little head of his. McGinnis’s book I think has sold 10 copies and all of them to members of the press, no one with the IQ of plant life would buy that crap.

[Sarah Barracuda]

McGinnis and Random House love redistribution of wealth, I wonder how they will like it when their OWN wealth is taken away LOL.
Sarah doesn’t even need to drag their asses into court, the threat of a lawsuit and the emails that Breitbart has will make Random House pull the plug on that sack of crap of a book

[longtermmemmory]

it used to be only money, now, thanks to the late johnny cochran, she can obtain injunctive relief.

[Steely Tom]

As someone right here on FR once said:

You don't threaten to sue.

You sue, and then threaten not to drop the suit.

[muawiyah]

All she needs to do is show malice. Her husband never was a big name public official, and neither were her kids.

I'm pretty sure somebody in the family will end up owning a really huge settlement ~

[DouglasKC]

I hope they put them out of business.

[SamuraiScot]

Why threaten?

If she has a case, drag his ass to court and get all the books recalled!

If you're suing in response to an act for which some redress is possible, the courts look askance if you aren't sincere enough to ask for redress before trying to shake the court system for money. And when you're planning to sue, the well-worded nastigrams you sent along the way can be so quotable in court, and frightening to the bad guys.

[crz]

All those anon’ sources will have to be brought in front of the court.

If no sources, then he is in a huge pile of shit. Unless they ID’d the book as fiction. Even then they cant get away with it?

[Mountain Troll]

It’s practically impossible for a public figure to win a libel case without a signed confession. The e-mails might just make this an exception.

[Diogenesis]

"McGinniss, Random House Published (PRE-PLANNED Literary Hoax
In the email below, sent in January of 2011, McGinniss reveals that his manuscript,
then under legal review at Crown/Random House,
could not prove its most headline-grabbing allegations. "

---

"From: Joe McGinniss To: Jesse Griffin
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 6:15 PM
Subject: I have to ask you for help
Jesse–
Legal review of my manuscript is underway and here’s my problem:
no one has ever offered documentation of any of the lurid stories about the Palins.
... I’ve neither seen nor heard anything that indicates that Ms. Tripp’s story has any basis in fact.
... No one has ever provided factual evidence that:
a) Todd had sex with a hooker, or with anyone else outside his marriage.
b) Sarah had an affair with Brad Hanson, or anyone else.
c) Track was a druggie who enlisted in the army to avoid a jail term. Or that he vandalized Wasilla school buses.
d) Willow was involved in the vandalism of the empty house in Meadow Lakes. Or that Sarah rushed back from Hawaii to put the lid on that.
e) Trig is not Sarah’s natural born child.
f) Bristol was promiscuous as a high schooler and drank and used drugs, or became pregnant again after Tripp’s birth.

Jesse, if you can put me in touch with people who are willing
and able to substantiate any of the above, now is the time to do so.
Otherwise, I hope you won’t complain that there are no startling new revelations in my book.
... My book represents the last best chance to put the truth about Sarah in front
of the American people in a documented, verifiable way.
But I need facts that I can rely on.
I didn’t live this long and work this hard over so many decades
to wind up as AlaskaWTF between hard covers.
Joe"

---

SSDD

"In 1987, McGinniss agreed to pay $325,000 to settle a lawsuit brought
by the convicted murderer who was the subject of McGinniss’s book Fatal Vision."

"In 2003, Random House released a larger-than-life, massive bestseller
by James Frey entitled A Million Little Pieces. Later, it was revealed that the book
was a fantastical literary hoax that made its way past some of the highest-paid
and most respected editors and lawyers in the literary world. Doubleday/Random House
felt compelled to offer full refunds to those who had bought the book."

---

[BreitbartSentMe]

From the Palin Lawyer’s letter:

‘Further, as Mr. McGinniss waived the attorney client privilege and disclosed to third parties what “Random House Lawyers” told him (he needed sources and the book was not publishable without them), we will also be entitled to review your company’s legal correspondence with Mr. McGinniss and his responses thereto.’

BOO-YA!!!

[Windflier]

Palin would have almost no chance of winning in court.

Sure she would. The book is pure speculation and unfounded rumor, published with malice aforethought, in an attempt to injure the Palins.

Palin's lawyers have the goods on this guy, and the publisher. The publisher has no documentation to back up the tawdry slanders in the book, and McGinniss even wrote an email to a friend admitting that, prior to publication.

I think any court would throw the book at Crown Publishing and Joe McGinniss.

[Springfield Reformer]

Because a threat that effectively shuts down further publication, but doesn’t keep the tawdry falsehoods in the headlines, is probably a better political strategy than just unceremoniously bringing down the hammer.

[AuH2ORepublican]

*ping*