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Prince Harry in court: Here’s a look at legal battles the Duke of Sussex is fighting against the U.K. press
London – Prince Harry is testifying in a U.K. court this week — the first time a senior member of Britain’s royal family has done so since the 19th century. His appearance is part of a case against the publisher Mirror Group Newspapers, claiming voicemail hacking and other illegal information gathering activities.
That case isn’t the only legal action Harry is currently involved in against Britain’s tabloid press, however. Here are the legal battles King Charles III’s second son is part of:
Mirror Group Newspapers
The civil suit that saw Prince Harry take the stand Tuesday in London’s High Court involves cases from Prince Harry and three other well-known British claimants. It alleges that journalists working for Mirror Group Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mirror tabloid, gathered information about the prince unlawfully, including by hacking into voicemails.
It involves 207 newspaper articles published between 1991 and 2011, though only 33 articles relating to Prince Harry will be considered in court.
The claimants argue that senior executives, including Piers Morgan — who edited the Daily Mirror newspaper from 1995 to 2004 — knew of the illegal activities. Morgan has denied any knowledge of such activities.
MGN has previously admitted that phone hacking took place at its tabloids, but its lawyer denied that 28 of the 33 articles involving Harry used unlawfully-gathered information. He said the group had “not admitted” that the other five articles involved unlawful information gathering, according to the BBC.
The suit is being heard before a judge, not a jury, and could result in a decision to award damages.
News Group Newspapers
Prince Harry launched legal proceedings against Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers (NGN), which publishes The Sun tabloid, in September 2019, accusing its journalists of unlawfully hacking his voicemails.
NGN says the claims are being brought too late and should be thrown out under the U.K.’s statute of limitations, but Harry claims the delay was due to a secret agreement between the publisher and the royal family, which NGN denies the existence of.
Associated Newspaper Group
Prince Harry is among several claimants — including pop star Elton John — who is accusing the publisher of the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday tabloids, Associated Newspapers (ANL) of using unlawful methods to gather information about them, including tapping phone calls and impersonating people to obtain medical information.
Lawyers for Harry and the other claimants say the alleged acts took place between 1993 and 2011, but that the behavior continued as late as 2018.
ANL denies wrongdoing by its journalists and says the cases should be thrown out because of the amount time that has passed.
Separate ANL suit
Separately, Prince Harry alone is suing ANL for libel over an article about his legal battle with the U.K. government regarding his security arrangements.
The article, published in the Daily Mail in February last year, alleged Harry tried to keep his legal battle with the U.K. government a secret.
A judge ruled the article was defamatory, and Harry is seeking a decision without a trial.
The prince also accepted an apology and damages from the same publisher over other articles two years ago in a separate libel lawsuit.
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Kash Patel, Trump’s pick for FBI director, targeted in possible Iran-backed cyberattack, sources say
Kash Patel, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, was recently notified that he was the target of a potential Iran-backed cyberattack, two people familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News.
The apparent hackers targeted his communications, but whether they succeeded and how much access they had to the data is still being investigated, the people said.
The FBI declined to comment. CBS News had also reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
The news of Iran’s potential targeting of Patel was first reported by Semafor.
This comes after months of warnings from the FBI and other federal agencies of Iranian cyber activity targeting Trump campaign staff leading up the 2024 presidential election. In September, Justice Department prosecutors charged three members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps with launching a broad hacking campaign against U.S. officials, including those close to Trump.
In August, Microsoft said that Iran was increasing its efforts to influence the November election, and in one case had targeted a presidential campaign with an email phishing attack.
Trump and his allies, including members of his first administration, have been targets of Iran since the 2020 killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad, and U.S. officials continued to warn of those cyberattack campaigns in recent months.
The 44-year-old Patel served in intelligence and defense roles in Trump’s first term, including chief of staff to the secretary of defense. He was also designated by Trump to be a representative to the National Archives and Records Administration and fought a subpoena to testify before a federal grand jury in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.
He is an attorney and staunch Trump loyalist who rose to prominence as an aide to former Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of California, fighting the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
He served on Trump’s National Security Council, then as a senior adviser to acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell, and later as chief of staff to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller.
President-elect Donald Trump is considering selecting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as his pick for defense secretary to potentially replace embattled Fox News host Pete Hegseth, two sources familiar with the transition told CBS News Tuesday night.
This comes after Trump and DeSantis attended a memorial for fallen law enforcement officers Tuesday in Florida.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report this story.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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