Harry Litman Resigns from L.A. Times Over “Appeasing Trump” and Owner’s Support
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Former U.S. Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman announced on Thursday that he has resigned from his position as a contributor to the L.A. Times editorial page, citing his disapproval of the newspaper’s billionaire owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, and his unwavering support for Donald Trump.
In a statement shared on his Substack platform, Litman described his resignation as a protest against Soon-Shiong’s increasing interference in the paper’s editorial stance, which Litman believes has led to a troubling shift toward favoring Trump. “I have written my last op-ed for the Times,” Litman declared. “Yesterday, I resigned my position. I don’t want to continue to work for a paper that is appeasing Trump and facilitating his assault on democratic rule for craven reasons.”
The turmoil at the Times escalated earlier this year when Soon-Shiong prevented the editorial board from publishing an editorial endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, leading Litman and others to take a stand. The latest blow, according to Litman, came when Soon-Shiong attempted to make the paper more sympathetic to Trump, despite strong objections from the editorial staff.
Litman, who had been with the Times for 15 years and served as Senior Legal Columnist for the past three, pointed to the spiking of the pro-Harris editorial as a key moment that revealed Soon-Shiong’s motivations. “By far the most important problem with Soon-Shiong’s scrapping of the editorial was the apparent motivation,” Litman wrote.
“It is untenable to suggest that Soon-Shiong woke up with sudden misgivings over Harris’s criminal justice record or with newfound affection for Trump’s immigration proposals.” Litman continued, asserting that the decision to quash the Harris endorsement seemed politically motivated: “The plain inference, and the one that readers and national observers have adopted, is that he wanted to hedge his bets in case Trump won—not even to protect the paper’s fortunes but rather his multi-billion-dollar holdings in other fields.”
The legal commentator, who is a regular on cable news, also expressed his disappointment with Soon-Shiong’s response to Trump’s attacks on the media. “Trump has made it clear that he will make trouble for media outlets that cross him,” Litman noted. “Rather than reacting with indignation at this challenge to his paper’s critical function in a democracy, Soon-Shiong threw the paper to the wolves. That was cowardly.”
Litman concluded by emphasizing the broader impact of Soon-Shiong’s actions on the paper’s identity. “The cost of alliance with an important national institution that has such an important role to play in pushing back against authoritarian rule feels too great,” he said. “Soon-Shiong’s conscious pattern of détente with Trump has recast the paper’s core identity to one of appeasement with an authoritarian madman. I am loath to affiliate with that identity in any way.”
