Lawyers for Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner threaten to sue Lincoln Project over Times Square billboards

Attorneys for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner threatened to sue The Lincoln Project, a prominent Republican group opposing the president, for billboards it put up in Times Square in Manhattan. 

The attorneys in a letter to The Lincoln Project complained about one billboard displaying Ivanka Trump, a senior adviser to her father, President Trump, smiling and gesturing next to figures showing that more than 33,000 New Yorkers and 221,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus. The lawyers also cited a billboard featuring Kushner, another senior White House adviser, next to body bags and an unrelated 2019 quote from before the pandemic in which he said New Yorkers would “suffer.” 

Nuts! pic.twitter.com/XxxkG43z3W

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) October 24, 2020

“I am writing concerning the false, malicious and defamatory ads that the Lincoln Project is displaying on billboards in Times Square,” wrote attorney Marc Kasowitz. “If these billboards are not immediately removed, we will sue you for what will doubtless be enormous compensatory and punitive damages.” 

The Lincoln Project as well as Democrats have launched withering criticism at the White House over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic as cases spike across the country. The group has risen to prominence by releasing rapid-fire ads highlighting the latest controversy stemming from the White House, often going viral online and drawing rebukes from the president. 

The anti-Trump group has most recently begun teaming up with Democratic groups to roll out ad buys worth millions of dollars in key swing states to hit President Trump on an array of issues, including the current health crisis and its economic fallout.

The Lincoln Project maintained in a statement that it will leave the billboards up, saying they accurately depict a lax attitude toward the pandemic. 

“The level of indignant outrage Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have shown towards The Lincoln Project for exposing their indifference for the more than 223,000 people who have lost their lives due to their reckless mismanagement of COVID-19 is comical. While we truly enjoy living rent free in their heads, their empty threats will not be taken any more seriously than we take Ivanka and Jared,” the group said in a statement. 

“It is unsurprising that an administration that has never had any regard or understanding of our Constitution would try to trample on our first amendment rights but we fully intend on making this civics lesson as painful as possible,” it added.