Free Republic

The debate about whether social media companies should have protection from liability misses a larger question about their role in American society. There’s nothing like a row between Twitter and President Trump to turn everyone into an expert on 47 U.S. Code § 230, a heretofore obscure section of federal law that deals with liability protections for companies like Twitter.Go on social media right now and you’re bound to find friends, neighbors, and colleagues opining on federal statutes and citing old Supreme Court cases to bolster their arguments that we have to do this or that right now to save the...

The subject came up at today’s White House briefing via a “question” from One America News, which sounded less like an actual question and more like a White-House-scripted talking point presented in the form of a question. Wouldn’t Trump totally destroy Scarborough on discovery if he dared file a lawsuit over his Lori Klausutis smears? Q: Would Trump welcome a defamation suit from Joe Scarborough?McENANY: I would refer you back to my previous comments that the audio from the Don Imus show is disturbing — there is a lot of laughing & joking about this matter that is certainly...

If Twitter wants to editorialize and 'factcheck' President TrumpÂ’s tweets with disclaimers, then it should be treated like any other publisher. TwitterÂ’s decision this week to append a disclaimer to President TrumpÂ’s tweets about the risks of mail-in ballot fraud should be enough, at long last, for us to dispense with the fiction that Twitter is nothing more than a neutral platform.ItÂ’s not, it never has been, and itÂ’s time to stop pretending otherwise.Set aside the relative merits of TrumpÂ’s comments and the entire debate about whether mass voting by mail is a good idea, because thatÂ’s not whatÂ’s important...

Many suffered collateral damage in the Deep State’s scheme to take down Donald Trump, but few will find justice. On Thursday, federal Judge Leonie Brinkema tossed Svetlana Lokhova’s defamation lawsuit against Stefan Halper and a slew of legacy media outlets. Brinkema’s 41-page opinion detailing why the Russian-born U.K. citizen had no recourse for the damage inflicted on her by the SpyGate plotters and their partners in the press exposed the sad reality of this wide-ranging scandal: many suffered collateral damage in the Deep State’s scheme to take down Trump, but few will find justice.Lokhova, an historian and former Ph.D. student...

The Trump campaign’s filing of a libel lawsuit against the so-called "extremely biased" New York Times was a "clever" move but the case will likely be “dismissed,” according to Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano. The lawsuit argued that the newspaper's March 27, 2019 op-ed titled “The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo" amounted to a knowingly false smear intended to "improperly influence the presidential election in November 2020." "They did a bad thing," Trump said at a coronavirus press conference later Wednesday, before hinting at more litigation. "There will be more coming. There will be more coming.”

Weeks after their classmate Nicholas Sandmann achieved victory in a lawsuit against CNN for the network’s role in broadcasting a defamatory narrative against him, a group of Covington Catholic students are launching new lawsuits against a list of media liberals who dishonestly attacked the students over the infamous incident at the Lincoln Memorial in 2019...The case was filed in the Kenton County Circuit Court on Tuesday.

George Zimmerman wants a day in court against two of the leading Democratic presidential contenders, accusing them of defamation. In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Florida, the man who killed Trayvon Martin in self-defense in 2012 accused Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of “maliciously defam[ing]” Mr. Zimmerman, using the killing “as a pretext to demagogue and falsely brand Zimmerman as a white supremacist and racist to their millions of Twitter followers.” Mr. Zimmerman was acquitted of all charges on traditional self-defense grounds, because Martin attacked him and beat his head against the ground, supposedly for profiling the black teen...

Attorney Alan Dershowitz filed a defamation countersuit against fellow lawyer David Boies, claiming Boies, his law firm and Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Guiffre attempted to extort money from rich and powerful men for private settlements. The suit, filed in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, alleging intentional infliction of emotional distress and extortion. It names billionaire Leslie Wexner as one of alleged extortion targets. This lawsuit comes in response to Boies’s suit against Dershowitz that was filed in November, accusing the attorney of disparaging Boies’s law firm, Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, by calling it “the law firm of extortion,...

Washington (CNN) -- Tulsi Gabbard filed a defamation lawsuit against Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, alleging the former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee "lied" about the Hawaii congresswoman's ties to Russia during a 2019 interview. The lawsuit stems from an October 2019 interview in which Clinton said that a Democrat running in the presidential primary was being groomed to run as a third-party candidate and was a favorite of the Russians. "I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be...

Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard filed a defamation lawsuit Wednesday against Hillary Clinton seeking $50 million in damages, claiming the former Democratic presidential nominee "carelessly and recklessly impugned" her reputation when she suggested in October that one of the 2020 Democratic candidates is "the favorite of the Russians." The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, says it aims to hold Clinton and other "political elites" accountable for "distorting the truth in the middle of a critical Presidential election." It also says Gabbard suffered an economic loss to be proven at trial.

As a matter of law, this will go nowhere. As a matter of politics, it’s Pass the Popcorn material. And as a matter of entertainment, the complaint itself is golden. With access to the next debate stage still within reach, Tulsi Gabbard announced that she has filed a defamation suit against Hillary Clinton in a New York federal court for calling her a “Russian asset” last October. At the time, Gabbard’s attorneys warned that she might sue, and the congresswoman from Hawaii finally delivered on that threat this morning.Gabbard’s campaign released this statement shortly after filing the lawsuit: Tulsi...

https://youtu.be/IdpSZGoOtFE

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) is suing Hillary Clinton for defamation over the former secretary of state's remarks on a podcast characterizing the Democratic presidential candidate as a Russian asset. Gabbard filed the defamation lawsuit Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Gabbard’s lawyers allege that Clinton’s comments have “smeared” Gabbard’s “political and personal reputation.” “Tulsi Gabbard is a loyal American civil servant who has also dedicated her life to protecting the safety of all Americans,” Gabbard’s lawyer Brian Dunne said in a statement. “Rep. Gabbard’s presidential campaign continues to gain momentum, but she has...

Adam Schiff always seems to get a free pass from the media. Now he might finally face some real consequences however, and the media won’t be able to help him this time. Schiff has reportedly been exposing the phone records of his political foes and journalists, as well. The Daily Signal reports: Adam Schiff’s Release of Phone Records Invites Legal, Ethics Scrutiny House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., faces ethics and legal hurdles for obtaining and exposing phone records of political enemies, knowledgeable observers say. Schiff may have violated the same rule he used to threaten House Republicans, said Tom...

A jury decided that Elon Musk had not defamed British caver Vernon Unsworth in a Los Angeles federal court on Friday.“My faith in humanity is restored,” said Musk in court after the verdict was delivered. The jury deliberated for only an hour before delivering its verdict in the case, which went to trial earlier this week. Elon Musk was found not liable for defamation in a Los Angeles federal court on Friday. A British cave explorer, Vernon Unsworth, brought the suit against Musk in September 2018, after the Tesla and SpaceX CEO had called him “sus” (suspicious) and a “pedo...

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., sued CNN for defamation on Tuesday, accusing the cable network of publishing a “demonstrably false hit piece” about him amid his high-profile opposition to the Trump impeachment inquiry. The 47-page lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, accuses the liberal network of publishing “numerous egregiously false and defamatory” statements about Nunes on Nov. 22, 2019 when journalist Vicky Ward reported claims that Nunes met with Ukranian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, in Vienna in 2018 to dig "up dirt" on Hunter and Joe Biden. Nunes, who has been leading GOP opposition...

The Supreme Court on Friday will consider whether to take up a prominent climatologist's defamation suit against a venerated conservative magazine, in a case that pits climate scientists against the free speech rights of global warming skeptics. The dispute between scientist Michael Mann and the National Review has drawn attention from lawmakers, interest groups, academics and media, as the court weighs adding a potentially blockbuster First Amendment showdown to an already politically charged docket. Scientists hail Mann’s lawsuit as a necessary defense against efforts to erode public confidence in the scientific consensus that climate change is an urgent threat, while...

We haven’t seen E. Jean Carroll’s name in the headlines for a while, probably since she finished her recent book tour. But now she’s back, bringing a lawsuit against Donald Trump. But it’s not for sexual assault or anything related. It’s a defamation suit spurred by the President supposedly calling her a liar or at least suggesting she was being untruthful when she claimed that he had raped her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman. She’s lawyered up and appears serious about moving this forward, so the tabloids should have a field day with it. (WaPo) A writer...

Pro-life teen Nick Sandmann’s defamation suit against the Washington Post got a new lease on life Monday thanks to US District Judge William Bertelsman partially reversing his prior ruling, which will allow the suit to move forward. Immediately following the January March for Life in Washington, D.C., the press erupted with claims that a video showed boys from the Kentucky religious school harassing Nathan Phillips, a Native American activist, outside the Lincoln Memorial. But additional extended video and firsthand accounts soon revealed that Phillips was the one who waded into the group waiting for its bus and decided to beat...

Over the years, the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has faced numerous lawsuits for defamation and other claims. The SPLC earned its reputation by suing the Ku Klux Klan, and in recent decades it has accused various organizations of being "hate groups," listing them along with the KKK in a cynical attempt to raise money and destroy its political enemies.... Every lawsuit against the SPLC has been stalled or dismissed or settled, with none reaching the discovery process — a legal process by which a plaintiff can investigate the internal documents of the organization or person he or she...