ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A slain military sniper whose memoir sparked a lawsuit from former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura admitted before his death that he removed Ventura's name from the book because he was afraid of being sued, jurors in Ventura's defamation lawsuit heard Wednesday. 
 
 Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, right, made his way back into Warren E. Burger Federal Building during the first day of jury selection in a defamation lawsuit, Tuesday, July 8, 2014 in St. Paul,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Taya Kyle, the widow of former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, arrives with her attorneys at the federal courthouse Tuesday, July 8, 2014 in St. Paul, Minn., for the start of a trial in a lawsuit filed by former... (Associated Press) 
 
 Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura makes his way back into Warren E. Burger Federal Building during the first day of jury selection in a defamation lawsuit, Tuesday, July 8, 2014 in St. Paul, Minn. Ventura... (Associated Press) 
 
 Ventura claims "American Sniper" author Chris Kyle, a former Navy SEAL who was fatally shot last year at a Texas gun range, invented a story in his best-selling autobiography about decking Ventura outside a California bar in 2006. Kyle had said Ventura made loud disparaging comments about SEALs while Kyle was attending a wake for a fellow SEAL killed in battle. 
 
 Kyle gave a video deposition in November 2012 that jurors saw Wednesday. Near the start, Kyle told Ventura's attorney, David Bradley Olson, that he wasn't concerned about the lawsuit. Asked why, he replied: "You can't defeat the truth." 
 
 But later on Kyle, who's regarded as the deadliest sniper in U.S. military history, acknowledged he was indeed afraid of being sued. He said his co-authors, Jim DeFelice and Scott McEwen, included Ventura's name in early drafts of the subchapter on the alleged incident — even calling him Jesse "The Body" Ventura, his name from his pro wrestling days. Kyle said he was acting on the advice of a friend who was a Dallas police officer. 
 
 "He said if you put something in the book that's not true you're probably liable," Kyle recalled, even as he insisted everything in the book was accurate to the best of his knowledge. 
 
 But he said it took some work to convince them that Ventura's name should come out. The three-page passage ultimately referred to Ventura as "Scruff Face." 
 
 Kyle's retelling was consistent with his published version of what happened at the bar near Kyle's base at the time in Coronado, California. He stood by his claim that Ventura told him "you deserve to lose a few (SEALs)," saying in the videotape, "Those are his exact words." 
 
 He said he then punched Ventura because he believed Ventura was fixing to hit him. 
 
 But Kyle acknowledged he had no direct knowledge of some of the details described in the story, such as an allegation that he gave Ventura a black eye. He said he heard them from witnesses, but he couldn't remember who. 
 
 "I was told it. I believed it," he said. 
 
 Kyle also said some details his friends told DeFelice — that he knocked out Ventura, threw him across tables or choked him — definitely weren't true. They didn't make it into print, however. 
 
 Olson asked Kyle if he was familiar with Ventura before the alleged confrontation. Kyle responded that he'd never met Ventura before, but that he was familiar with Ventura's service as a SEAL and his subsequent career as a wrestler, actor and politician. 
 
 "Back then we thought that he was a pretty cool dude," Kyle said. 
 
 Ventura, who was Minnesota governor from 1999-2003, pursued his lawsuit even after Kyle was killed in February 2013, saying it was important to clear his name. Ventura, who has hosted several cable TV shows since his single term ended, has said his job offers dried up after the book came out because of the harm to his reputation. 
 
 Legal experts have said Ventura must prove that Kyle made up the story, or at least acted with reckless disregard for the truth. 
 
 Earlier Wednesday, Kyle's widow, Taya Kyle, testified they never intended to keep the money from the book. A key claim Ventura must prove is that the Kyles profited from a made-up story. 
 
 In often tearful testimony, she said they wanted to donate money to other veterans but found themselves limited by gift tax laws that prevented them from donating more than $13,000 each to two families last year. Olson challenged that assertion, suggesting by his questions that they could have given more away and just paid the taxes. The book has earned more than $3 million in royalties. 
 
 The judge ruled earlier that any profits from an upcoming movie based on Kyle's book could be subject to damages. 
 
 Taya Kyle testified Wednesday that the alleged incident won't be part of the movie, which is being directed by Clint Eastwood. Kyle said she had been told by a screenwriter that there wasn't enough room for it. ||||| 
 
 In this April 6, 2012, photo, former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle poses in Midlothian, Texas. The estate of Kyle, who was fatally shot on a gun range in 2013, faces a lawsuit from former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, who alleges Kyle fabricated a bar brawl between them. (AP Photo/The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Paul Moseley) 
 
 It was Sept. 29, 2006, when Master at Arms 2nd Class Michael Monsoor smothered a grenade in Ramadi, Iraq, to shield other Navy SEALs and Iraqi soldiers they were working with from harm. His actions immediately became the stuff of military legend, and resulted in a posthumous Medal of Honor in 2008. 
 
 The resulting wake the following month spawned another story that, in turn, led to a high-profile defamation suit being heard in court this week. 
 
 Fellow SEAL Chris Kyle said in his bestselling 2012 book “American Sniper” that he punched out a celebrity in a bar while mourning Monsoor’s death with other SEALs after the individual “started running his mouth about the war and everything and anything he could connect to it.” That included President George W. Bush and deployed SEALs, who “were doing the wrong thing, killing men and women and children and murdering,” the man said, according to Kyle’s book. 
 
 Kyle, who was shot to death in 2013, said in his book that he tried to get the man — identified only as “Mr. Scruff Face” — to keep it down, and he responded by saying the the SEALs in the bar “deserve to a lose a few.” The man eventually took a swing at him, Kyle alleged, and all hell broke loose. 
 
 “Being level-headed and calm can last only so long,” Kyle said in his book. “I laid him out. Tables flew. Stuff happened. Scruff Face ended up on the floor.” 
 
 Kyle concluded: “I have no way of knowing for sure, but rumor has it he showed up at the [SEAL] graduation with a black eye.” 
 
 It’s far from the only dramatic part in Kyle’s book — at one point, he accuses his commanding officer during the March 2003 invasion of Iraq of being a coward for failing to involve them in more combat. But it’s the “Scruff Face” passage that now has Kyle’s widow in court facing Jesse Ventura, the former governor of Minnesota, WWF wrestler and Vietnam War era veteran. Ventura sued Kyle in 2012 after the sniper said in media interviews like this one that the individual in question was Ventura, and that Kyle punched him in the face. 
 
 Disclaimer: There’s some rough language in this radio interview Kyle did with the “Opie and Anthony Show,” but it’s believed to be the first place he named Ventura as “Scruff Face”: 
 
 The whole mess is in court now, as a Hollywood film version of Kyle’s book makes its way through production with a planned 2015 release. It will star Bradley Cooper as Kyle, and is directed by Clint Eastwood. Other Navy SEALs will reportedly have roles in the film. 
 
 
 
 Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, right, makes his way into the Warren E. Burger Federal Building on Tuesday in St. Paul, Minn., during the first day of jury selection in his defamation lawsuit against the estate of former Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle. (AP Photo/The Star Tribune, Elizabeth Flores) 
 
 Ventura pursued the defamation lawsuit against Kyle even after police said the sniper was shot to death by a fellow veteran on a Texas gun range in February 2013. Ventura says the incident never happened, and that it is important for him to clear his name. But critics have pointed out that he is doing so as the profits from “American Sniper” continue to pour in — they’re reportedly over $3 million. Ventura has said that he was worried about looking like a traitor, considering his own ties to the Navy and its Underwater Demolition Teams, which were merged with modern SEAL teams in the 1980s, after he served. 
 
 It will be a tough case for Ventura to win. As a public figure, he must prove to the jury that Kyle knew the story was false, or that he told it without regard for the truth. Kyle’s widow, Taya, said in court Wednesday that her husband doesn’t lie, and that he planned to donate the proceeds from his book to charity. The trial is expected to take about three weeks. 
 
 UPDATE: July 9, 10:45 a.m.: This post has been updated to clarify the relationship between the Navy’s UDT units and modern SEAL teams. 
 
 UPDATE: July 11, 3:15 p.m.: The excellent special operations website SOFREP.com takes on the controversy over whether Ventura should be allowed to call himself a SEAL veteran. The opinion of Brandon Webb, a SEAL veteran himself: “Like it or not, Jesse Ventura is a Navy SEAL. He did the pushups and put up with the cold water, just like the rest of us.”
– A truly strange court proceeding kicked off in Minnesota this week, as former governor/professional wrestler Jesse Ventura brought his defamation suit against murdered American Sniper author Chris Kyle. The Washington Post has a great recap of the dispute, which stems from Kyle's 2012 book. In it, Kyle writes that he punched out a celebrity in a bar for saying that the SEALS "deserve to lose a few" for their actions overseas. Kyle refers to the celebrity only as "Mr. Scruff Face" in the book, but later identified him as Ventura. Ventura pursued the suit even after Kyle's death, because he says the incident didn't happen and he has to clear his name. In his opening statement, his lawyer said Ventura would testify that Kyle "made the whole story up." Yesterday saw Kyle testify from beyond the grave, with a 2012 video deposition in which he said he left Ventura's name out of the book because—you guessed it—he was afraid of being sued, the AP reports.