President Trump's re-election campaign has sued CNN over "false and defamatory" statements about seeking Russia's help to win the 2020 election, according to Fox News.

"The complaint alleges CNN was aware of the falsity at the time it published them but did so for the intentional purpose of hurting the campaign while misleading its own readers in the process... the campaign filed this lawsuit against CNN and the preceding suits against The New York Times and The Washington Post to hold the publishers accountable for their reckless false reporting and also to establish the truth," Senior Legal Adviser to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. Jenna Ellis told Fox.

The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia where CNN is located, claims that CNN said Trump's campaign "assessed the potential risks and benefits of again seeking Russia’s help in 2020 and has decided to leave that option on the table."

The complaint said that CNN was well aware the statements were false “because there was an extensive record of statements from the Campaign and the administration expressly disavowing any intention to seek Russian assistance” but promoted the claim anyway. The complaint said that Trump’s legal team sent CNN a request to retract and apologize last month but CNN executives refused. The Trump campaign now seeks “millions of dollars” through litigation. -Fox News

"The Campaign therefore was left with no alternative but to file this lawsuit to: publicly establish the truth, properly inform CNN’s readers and audience (and the rest of the world) of the true facts, and seek appropriate remedies for the harm caused by CNN’s false reporting and failure to retract and apologize for it," reads the complaint.

The article referenced by the lawsuit was written by Larry Noble and published by CNN on June 13, 2019, titled "Soliciting dirt on your opponents from a foreign government is a crime. Mueller should have charged Trump campaign officials with it." It states that Trump's campaign "assessed the potential risks and benefits of again seeking Russia's help in 2020 and has decided to leave that option on the table."

According to the complaint, "The Defamatory Article claims, among other things, that the Campaign ‘assessed the potential risks and benefits of again seeking Russia’s help in 2020 and has decided to leave that option on the table," adding "The Defamatory Article does not cite to any facts or reasoning in support of this claim. The Defamatory Article is false."

The complaint notes that the Trump campaign “has repeatedly and openly disclaimed any intention to seek Russian involvement in the 2020 election” and “examples of this are too numerous to fully enumerate.” Trump recently filed similar lawsuits against The New York Times and Washington Post. -Fox News

"False statements are not protected under the U.S. Constitution; therefore, these suits will have no chilling effect on freedom of the press. If journalists are more accurate in their statements and reporting, that would be a positive development, but not why these suits were filed," said Ellis.

The lawsuit adds that "Noble has written numerous articles accusing the President of criminal activity, and of campaign finance and ethics violations, and has lodged a complaint against a Super-PAC which supports the President," adding "CNN clearly had a malicious motive in publishing the Defamatory Article, and acted with reckless disregard for the truth."