Sarah Palin Legal Threats for Claims Made in 'The Rogue' Do Not Scare Publisher
Crown Publishing Group has defended its decision to publish Joe McGinniss’ tell-all book titled, The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, despite threats from the Sarah Palin camp that she might sue both the author and company for publishing “false” allegations.
“We are confident that the reporting in "The Rogue," is solid, reliable, and well-substantiated. We stand by our publication and our author," spokesman Stuart Applebaum said in an emailed statement Tuesday the Los Angeles Times reported.
Palin’s family attorney John Tiemessen wrote a letter Monday to Maya Mavjee, publisher of the division owned by Random House, that Palin may sue her, Crown Publishing, and McGinniss “for knowingly publishing false statements,” ABC News has reported.
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The book has been criticized for its use of unnamed sources to spread what McGinniss himself called “garbage” in an alleged email to Jesse Griffin, a liberal Alaskan blogger.
In January 2011, McGinniss sent the email, which read:
“Here is my problem: no one has ever offered documentation of any of the lurid stories about the Palins.
”A lurid, sensational, defamatory story about Todd, based only on the account of a woman charged with prostitution, who is no doubt desperate for money, and who sold her story to the Enquirer, is a gift from heaven for Sarah.”
“And rumors about what might come in weeks ahead are not facts. In fact, they’re garbage.”
McGinniss urged Griffin to put him in touch with people who were “willing and able” to provide proof of several of the statements made in The Rogue.
“As Random House lawyers are already pointing out to me – nothing I can cite other than my own reporting rises above the level of tawdry gossip,” he wrote.
“The proof is always just around the corner, but that’s a corner nobody has been able to turn.”
The email came to light when conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted it to his website.
The Palins are fighting back and “demanding answers from Random House,” a source close to the family told ABC.
“Random House is at the top of the food chain and published a book based upon acknowledged unsubstantiated gossip,” the source said. “The revealing email is key as evidence of this defamatory approach to politics through proxies.”
According to the letter sent by Tiemessen, McGinniss’ email clearly shows that he “researched and investigated many false and scurrilous allegations, and concluded that there was absolutely no evidence anywhere backing these allegations,” ABC wrote.
Tiemessen told Mavjee, “Since both your company, and the author, clearly knew the statements were false, admitted they had no basis in fact or reality, but decided to publish in order to harm Governor Palin’s family, you and Mr. McGinniss have defamed the Palins.”
McGinniss has responded to some of the biting reviews regarding The Rogue via his blog.
“I got behind the mask. I did find the real Sarah Palin,” he wrote. “But it’s a whole lot easier to try to kill the messenger than it is to read the message.”
