Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign manager has ditched a lawsuit against the Daily Beast.
Chris LaCivita, who co-managed Trump’s election victory with Susie Wiles, discontinued his lawsuit on a Friday night before a federal holiday, despite having initially posted on X: “F--- Around Find Out,” and boasting, “I’m really looking forward to making my case in front of a jury.”
The Beast did not retract the story, made no apology, and gave no cash payment, all of which are common in settlements.
LaCivita had brought his suit over a Beast report from October 2024, written by Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Isikoff, about the millions that flowed into his company, Advancing Strategies LLC, while he was managing Trump’s campaign. He also sued over four other reports that followed it.
The reports, based on public Federal Election Commission records, said that LaCivita’s LLC was paid $22 million over two years leading up to the election, a figure that was reduced in later reporting to $19.2 million. The Beast also noted that the funds could have passed through the LLC to other vendors.
The Atlantic had reported in November 2024 that a furious Trump had interrogated LaCivita about the figure in a tense session on his campaign plane, then told LaCivita, “You should sue those b----rds.” Trump later teased LaCivita, The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta reported.
LaCivita’s high-profile attorney, Mark Geragos, had filed two counts of defamation and one of conspiracy to injure another in trade, business, or profession, in federal court in Richmond, Virginia. He claimed the money was passed through the LLC and was “not the money which Mr. LaCivita personally received.” Geragos—who also represents the Menendez Brothers—had not specified the damages he wanted if he had won. The suit demanded triple damages and said, “It is estimated that it would cost millions of dollars to repair Mr. LaCivita’s reputation.”
The Beast had vowed to defend the suit, calling it “meritless.” The news site was represented by Kate Bolger of Davis Wright Tremaine, the leading New York First Amendment law firm, and by John McGavin of McGavin, Boyce, Bardot, Thorsen, & Katz, PC, of Fairfax, Virginia.
In a statement last March, the Beast said, “The Daily Beast stands by its reporting on Chris LaCivita. His lawsuit is meritless and a transparent attempt to intimidate the Beast and silence the independent press. The Beast will defend itself vigorously and looks forward to following the money to confirm where every penny flowed in LaCivita’s LLC.”
The Beast went to court in November last year to ask a federal judge to dismiss the case out of hand. It also issued subpoenas to dozens of third parties, which will now be withdrawn. District Judge Henry E. Hudson had still to rule on the motion to dismiss when LaCivita agreed to settle. He received no apology or payment.
LaCivita’s decision to settle ends one of the many lawsuits brought by Trump and his acolytes since the election against media companies. The Wall Street Journal is continuing to fight his $10 billion suit over its report that he wrote a birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein with an apparent line drawing of a naked girl, his signature representing pubic hair, and the ending, “may every day be another wonderful secret.” Other media organizations, however, have paid Trump large sums of money to end lawsuits, including ABC, which handed over $15 million and CBS, which handed over $16 million.
When the campaign ended, LaCivita did not enter government service, like Wiles. He has instead secured jobs as a “Trump whisperer” and been paid by campaigns at home and abroad.
Most recently, Semafor revealed that he is advising Warner Brothers Discovery, the owners of CNN, HBO and the historic movie studios, on their attempt to be taken over by Netflix, a deal which Trump himself has said he will weigh in on.
In November, the New York Times disclosed that his firm had been paid $1.6 million by the Albanian opposition for advice for its campaign to re-elect the country’s former president Sali Berisha. LaCivita worked with pardoned felon Paul Manafort, himself a former Trump campaign manager, to position Berisha as a Trump-like figure, even saying he would “Make Albania Great Again.” The candidate was resoundingly defeated and still faces corruption charges.
In the U.S. LaCivita was appointed to crypto giant Coinbase’s “advisory council” in January 2025, a month before the Securities Exchange Commission dropped a lawsuit against the crypto firm; is senior advisor to Building America’s Future, the Elon Musk-funded Republican PAC; advises America250, the non-partisan body which is managing celebrations of the nation’s semiquincentennial, thanks to an appointment by Trump; in another Trump move, was made a commissioner for the American Battle Monuments Commission; and works as a consultant with Republican public affairs firm Michael Best strategies.
He has picked up multiple campaign roles including at least four Republican Senate campaigns. He was appointed to advise Texas Senator John Cornyn on his heavily contested re-election campaign; is a senior advisor to South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham who is also facing a contested primary; is aiding former Congressman Mike Rogers in Michigan; and is advising Ashley Moody, the Florida senator who filled Marco Rubio’s seat and who wants to secure it permanently in November. In Florida he is also advising Byron Donalds, the MAGA-aligned congressman running for governor in November who has already been endorsed by Trump.
And the enlisted Marine veteran and Virginia Commonwealth University graduate was a prestigious Pritzker Visiting Fellow at the University of Chicago last year.
It is not just LaCivita himself who has prospered since the Trump re-election; so has his family.
His daughter Victoria is now the White House’s regional communications director, while his son, Chris LaCivita Jr., who graduated from Virginia Tech in 2022 and worked as a digital marketing specialist for a hunting company. He is now registered to lobby for dozens of clients through a Republican lobbying firm called Checkmate, and is personally an advisor to the American Conservation Coalition and Nature is Non-Partisan.
