Donald Trump vs 17-year-old’s cat website story may be false; US President’s lawyers deny sending C&D

The Donald Trump vs a 17-year-old teen’s cat website story could be fake after all. It was first reported that the US president’s legal camp sent a cease-and-desist letter to a girl named Lucy over her cat website, but according to evidence and the Trump team, the letter do not exist.

The Observer claimed that lawyers from the Trump Organization sent Lucy a cease-and-desist over her TrumpScratch.com, in which users can scratch Trump’s face using cat claws to their hearts’ content. Upon the advice of her family lawyer, she changed her site’s name to KittenFeed.com but retained Trump’s face as target. The Trump lawyers apparently were not appeased and had sent her another letter.

It was a claim that had angered Trump’s growing critics, who called the US leader thin-skinned. However, according to Gizmodo, the facts didn’t add up.

Lucy allegedly received the first C&D from Trump on March 1, “three weeks after the site went live.” The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a private sector responsible for IP address allocation, domain name system management and more, trumpscratch.com was first registered on March 22, the day after the first article about the site was published. “Three weeks” would fall in mid-April.

Gizmodo adds that kittenfeed.com, the domain Lucy allegedly moved her site to, was registered before trumpscratch.com. The original owners of the domain let the registration lapse in 2014, allowing Lucy to buy it on March 2.

The Hollywood Reporter, which also obtained the one-page C&D letter sent to Lucy by the Trump Organization, now also doubts the authenticity of Lucy’s story and even the 17-year-old girl’s existence. Chief legal officer at the Trump Organization sent THR an email, claiming the letter was fake” and did not come from them.

Alan Garten, the general counsel of the Trump Organization, supposedly sent the C&D letters to the Californian teen. Although it is possible he was just denying sending the letters, it’s more likely the letters existed even before Lucy’s website was coded.

As Above the Law notes, the letter, in which Trump was described as “well-known businessman, real estate developer, star of the television show ‘The Apprentice’ and registered owner of the trademark Trump,” used the same language as the C&D letters Garten previously sent to others. It cited a letter the organisation sent in 2015 to StopTrump.us, which Garten said was infringing the president’s trademark.

The Observer has since updated its story. “An external PR firm reached out on behalf of the Trump Organization, claiming the Observer never called regarding this story. We did,” the publication said.

Read more: Trump sends cease-and-desist to 17-year-old student over cat website