The lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chairman John Podesta sent a cease-and-desist letter to The Daily Caller on Wednesday demanding the conservative news outlet retract and issue a correction for an article claiming Mr. Podesta “may have violated” federal financial disclosure laws.
The March 26 article by Richard Pollock claimed Mr. Podesta may have violated federal law by failing to disclose 75,000 shares of stock he was awarded by Joule Unlimited Technologies before joining the Obama White House in 2014.
Mr. Podesta’s attorney, Marc Elias, tweeted a copy of the cease-and-desist letter addressed to The Daily Caller co-founder Neil Patel, saying the article “is, as you know, entirely false.”
I sent a cease & desist letter demanding the Daily Caller correct the lies about @johnpodesta’s financial disclosure. Waiting for response. pic.twitter.com/5Nfi0yG8sL
— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) March 29, 2017
“Mr. Podesta completely and accurately fulfilled his financial disclosure work requirements upon entering the Obama Administration in 2014,” the letter said. “In fact, Mr. Podesta reported more information on his financial disclosure forms than was required. All false accusations to the contrary are injurious to Mr. Podesta’s reputation.”
The Daily Caller failed to “meet even the most basic journalistic standards of seeking comment or information from my client,” the letter continued. It said that as a “New Entrant,” Mr. Podesta wasn’t required to fill out the government financial disclosure form that the article criticized him for leaving blank.
“I demand that you immediately cease publication of these false and libelous claims,” the letter said. “Given the clear evidence that the reporting for this article was baseless and unreliable, I further demand that you publish a correction clarifying that Mr. Podesta fulfilled his financial reporting obligations. If you do not take the steps by close of business Thursday, I will be advising my client regarding further legal action as soon as Friday.”
Mr. Podesta himself also weighed in on Twitter, calling The Daily Caller’s story “false.”
False stories about me can’t cover up Trump’s growing Russia problem https://t.co/ODkadp3N63
— John Podesta (@johnpodesta) March 29, 2017
As of Thursday morning, the article still remained active on The Daily Caller’s website and no correction had been issued. The Washington Examiner editor Alex Pappas noted the reason might be because the letter was sent to the wrong address.
The Daily Caller’s headquarters is located at 1050 17th St. NW in D.C., but Mr. Elias’ letter was addressed to 1950 17th St. NW.
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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