The President of One America News Network, Charles Herring, has published a blistering letter calling on Vanity Fair to retract claims that Donald Trump’s eldest son secretly bought a stake in the news outlet.
The scorching legal threat specifically targeted Vanity Fair correspondent Gabe Sherman as well as Roger Lynch, the CEO of Conde Nast, accusing them of publishing “false, malicious and defamatory statements” about the conservative cable network.
Herring posted a copy of it on Twitter, tagging Sherman and Conde Nast, which is Vanity Fair’s parent company.
A more user friendly copy of @OANN’s Notice to Retract Defamatory Statements issued to @GabrielSherman and @CondeNast is available at: https://t.co/vE7WWTp6U3
In the letter, Herring specifically takes issue with a Vanity Fair story from Monday, which reported, citing anonymous sources, that Donald Jr. was among a group of investors who have acquired a major stake in OAN, which Herring privately owns.
Sherman’s reporting claimed that the investment was a Trump family hedge against what they view as an insufficiently loyal Fox News, and a potential haven for the Trump brand, should the president lose the November election.
The OAN president flatly denied that any stake in the company has been sold “to anyone or any entity, period.” He also added that no agreements are in place for any future sales.
Herring described Sherman’s reporting as “littered with anti-Trump sentiment”, saying this was a “clear indication” of the reporter’s motivations to print “clear, malicious, and defamatory statements” against the network.
“Your motives seem clear: to strip OAN of any legitimate independence in its reporting by propagating fake and defamatory statements,” Herring wrote.
We will not stand by and allow your lies to be disseminated.
The letter demanded a public retraction of the story’s claims and called on Sherman and Conde Nast to publicly apologize. It also instructed them to preserve all materials related to the reporting, in anticipation of possible legal action.
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