US President Donald Trump said Monday that he is preparing to file a lawsuit against a think tank that argued his deployment of the National Guard to several US cities had no measurable impact on reducing violent crime.
Trump, in a statement posted on his Truth Social platform, called the Center for American Progress report a "Radical Left SCAM" and added: "This will be met with a lawsuit, which is being drawn now." Trump issued a similar threat on Aug. 17, about a month after the report's release.
"The report is just another Radical Left SCAM, as are the people who fund this gaggle of Lunatics, including George Soros, Bill and Melinda Gates, Google, Apple, Visa, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, WellsFargo, Bank of America, Walmart, Toyota, T-Mobile, and NBC Universal," he wrote.
Trump also said he was "strongly considering adding some of the contributors to this Fake Organization" to the legal action.
"Crime is way down since I took Office, and they know it," Trump said, adding that the "Liars … must be held accountable!"
The report, released on July 13, faulted the administration for claiming credit for a historic decline in violent crime although the downward trend began earlier. It found that Trump's deployment of the National Guard "had no measurable impact on violent crime trends."
Last month, the think tank hit back at Trump's threat of a lawsuit, calling it a "transparent attempt to silence us. We will neither cower nor bend in the face of it."
Neera Tanden, the center's president and CEO, said its work is based on "rigorous, evidence-based research and analysis" and called the threatened lawsuit "baseless."
