Buenos Aires, Argentina — Argentina’s President Javier Milei is suing several journalists for libel and slander. Critics have denounced the lawsuit as an attack on free speech.
The president’s actions come in response to a number of defamation suits filed by journalists against Milei, accusing him of smear campaigns and promoting fake news on social media.
Milei’s lawyer, Francisco Oneto, filed lawsuits this week against Jorge Rial, Fabián Doman, Mauro Federico, all journalists from news network C5N, and Nicolás Lantos from digital news outlet El Destape.
Rial and Doman, best known in Argentina for tabloid and celebrity gossip stories, were accused of libel for commenting on the president’s personal and romantic life.
Milei’s private life has been thoroughly scrutinized since he decided to run for president in 2022, with particular attention placed on his close relationship with his sister Karina Milei, who currently serves as his general secretary.
His relationships with celebrities, including actress Fátima Florez and, later, former model Amalia “Yuyito” González, have also received extensive media coverage.
Milei also filed a libel complaint this week against journalist Julia Mengolini. The move follows Mengolini’s own accusation that the president orchestrated a smear campaign against her, including the spread of aggressive fake news on social media.
Milei’s lawsuit claims that Mengolini, founder of FM Futurock radio, damaged his honor and reputation — both personally and in his role as president — with statements she made more than two years ago.
“Milei is a man who lives with eight dogs and is in love with his sister,” Mengolini said during a panel discussion on the news channel C5N, aired during the 2023 presidential campaign. The lawsuit cites this remark, along with a post on X from August 2024 in which the journalist clarified her earlier comments, stating she never claimed that the president slept with his dogs or his sister.
“It is very inconsistent. I think he is prosecuting me because he is bothered by my ideas, because I’m very critical of his government, and it seems I have an influential voice,” Mengolini told Argentina Reports.
“The president has given me too much importance. I’ve suffered systematic attacks for a long time, with his digital militia harassing me, threatening me, and spreading fake news about me. It started before Milei was president, the same trolls were already bullying me,” she added.
Mengolini framed Milei’s lawsuit as a larger attack from the libertarian government against free speech. The journalist claims her own radio station has also been targeted. “They lie all the time about us having a radio station that lives off government advertising, which is an absolute lie,” she said.
“Futurock is a radio fully supported by subscriptions from its listeners. And since that bothers them a lot, they make up things to delegitimize us. We are constantly under attack,” she added.
“I will sue back,” Mengolini told Argentina Reports. The journalist plans to file charges against Milei for a smear campaign against her on social media, for which she “undoubtedly” blames the president.
Read more: Javier Milei directs ire at Argentina’s media: “We don’t hate journalists enough”
In May, Milei sued journalists Carlos Pagni of newspaper La Nación and Ari Lijalad of El Destape over their published articles. Lijalad had compared Milei’s rhetoric to Nazi speech, while Pagni drew parallels between Argentina’s political landscape and Germany before the rise of Adolf Hitler. The lawsuit was dismissed in June by federal judge Daniel Rafecas, a decision that the president later appealed.
That same month, Milei launched a campaign against mainstream media under the slogan “We don’t hate journalists enough.” The message has been echoed by members of his cabinet, with advisor Santiago Caputo publicly harassing a photojournalist. Another photographer, Pablo Grillo, was hospitalized for weeks after being injured by police while covering a retirees’ protest in front of Congress in March.
Read more: Milei’s government cracks down on pensioner protests; brawl breaks out in Argentina’s Congress
The Argentine president has recently adapted his anti-journalist rhetoric, clarifying that only “90%” of journalists are worthy of hate. He also now frequently compares reporters to the tenth plague of Egypt, while the reasoning behind the metaphor remains unclear.
During the 1990s, then-President Carlos Menem frequently abused libel lawsuits in an attempt to silence critical journalism, with several cases escalating to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
In 2009, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner promoted legal reforms aimed at limiting libel and defamation lawsuits in cases of “public interest”, thereby restricting public officials’ ability to sue journalists.
Featured image credit:
Image: President Javier Milei
Author: Javier Milei on Instagram
Source: Javier Milei on Instagram
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