Donald Trump’s campaign manager says he might sue BuzzFeed for libel. It would be tough to win.

Donald Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said that he is mulling a lawsuit against BuzzFeed, which reported that the point man for the Republican presidential front-runner has made unwanted sexual advances toward female journalists. "I'm not a public person," Lewandowski said. "I told [BuzzFeed reporter] McKay Coppins that his story was inaccurate. I told him not to publish. And he chose to run the story anyway." Lewandowski's assertion that he is "not a public person" would actually be a critical point in a hypothetical libel case.

The standard for proving libel is higher for public figures than it is for private citizens. Famous people must show that defamatory statements were made with "actual malice" — meaning that a news outlet knew it was publishing a false report or recklessly ignored reasons to doubt the veracity of its information. Regular Joes, by contrast, need only demonstrate negligence. So would the guy running the campaign of the likely GOP nominee be able to convince a court that he is a private citizen? Probably not, said David Ardia, co-director of the Center for Media Law and Policy at the University of North Carolina. "He is not someone who has shied away from interactions with the media," said Ardia, a former assistant counsel at The Washington Post. "He has voluntarily injected himself into the campaign."