President Donald Trump’s legal team has threatened a $5 billion defamation lawsuit against the Center for American Progress (CAP) over a report criticizing his National Guard deployments, which the think tank says had no measurable effect on violent crime. The dispute centers on a July 2025 analysis and Trump’s claims of credit for reducing crime in Washington, D.C.
The Report and the Threat
In an Aug. 17 letter, Trump attorney Alejandro Brito demanded the Center for American Progress retract a July 13 report asserting that National Guard deployments in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and Memphis had “no evidence” of reducing violent crime. Brito gave the organization until 5 p.m. Friday to issue a retraction, apology, and financial compensation, warning of a lawsuit seeking at least $5 billion if they failed. The letter, obtained by CBS News, accused CAP of publishing false, malicious, and defamatory statements about the president.
Trump threatens defamation suit against left-leaning think tank
The report, which analyzed crime data from 2023 onward, concluded that Trump’s National Guard interventions had no measurable effect on violent crime, homicides, or gun victimizations. It also criticized the administration for taking credit for a broader decline in crime that predated the deployments.
The report, titled National Guard Deployments and Crime Trends, relied on citywide crime data from Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and Memphis. It stated, In an effort to falsely claim his policies have reduced crime, the president is exploiting the fact that violent crime and murder were already declining in the cities his administration targeted with these extreme interventions.
The analysis projected that keeping the Guard deployments in place through 2026 would bring their total taxpayer cost above $1.7 billion. It further argued that the “primary goal” of the deployments was never to stop crime
and described them as a dangerous power grab by the Trump administration.
The Trump administration first deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles in June 2025 with a mission to protect federal immigration officials and other federal law enforcement amid heated protests over immigration raids. Two months later, Mr. Trump announced Guard troops would also deploy to Washington, D.C., to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse.
Deployments to Memphis and New Orleans followed. The report that drew the president’s ire relied on multiple analyses of citywide crime data in those communities and concluded that the National Guard deployments had no measurable effect on violent crime.
CAP’s Response and Legal Arguments
Trump threatens think tank over D.C. crime report, extending
CAP President Neera Tanden called the threat utterly absurd,
stating, Truth is not and cannot be defamation.
In a statement, she defended the report as grounded in rigorous, evidence-based research and analysis, adding that the findings were “inconvenient” to the administration. CAP attorney Kevin Metz rejected the defamation claims outright, writing, This is utterly absurd: truth is not and cannot be defamation.
Tanden emphasized that the right to disagree with the government, debate policies, and express dissent over policy choices is central to a functioning American democracy. She added, Efforts to silence independent research because its findings are unwelcome by an administration or president should alarm every American.
The Broader Context of Trump’s Legal Tactics
Trump Threatens $5 Billion Defamation Suit Over Report Saying
This is not the first time Trump has leveraged lawsuits to target critics. The Center for American Progress, a progressive organization, has previously faced attacks from Trump, including a post where he labeled the report a Radical Left SCAM
on Truth Social. Trump had publicly targeted the report before Brito’s letter arrived, as the Times noted, calling it another Radical Left SCAM
on Truth Social last week.
The report’s findings contradicted Trump’s assertions that National Guard deployments had created a “renaissance” in Washington, D.C. At a White House event, Trump took credit for having created one of the safest places in the United States,
adding, It was a graffiti-filled, crime-filled mess.
For now, CAP remains steadfast, vowing to neither cower nor bend in the face of it.
The dispute underscores tensions between executive power and free speech, with CAP framing the threatened lawsuit as an attempt to suppress dissent.
