Free Republic

Sarah Palin on Tuesday lost in the retrial of her defamation case against the New York Times – a second defeat in the efforts by the former Republican vice-presidential candidate. A federal jury in New York deliberated for two hours then found the newspaper not liable for allegedly defaming Palin in a 2017 editorial about gun control. Palin appeared dejected as she left the courthouse in Manhattan. The case garnered much attention not just because Palin and the Times are household names across the US but because it raised broader issues about free speech in the era of the return...

Former National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers told FBI agents that the crux of a Pulitzer Prize award-winning Washington Post story on the Russian collusion hoax was “wrong," according to newly declassified documents obtained by Just the News. Admiral Rogers, who retired in 2018 after four years as National Security Agency chief and commander of U.S. Cyber Command, spoke with FBI agents and a key member of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team in June 2017, where he threw cold water on a May 2017 story by the Post titled, “Trump asked intelligence chiefs to push back against FBI collusion probe...

DOGE leader Elon Musk has announced he will be suing former Democrat Jamaal Bowman for his claims that the SpaceX boss is a “Nazi” during an appearance on CNN. Bowman appeared on CNN’s Newsnight to parrot the false left-wing media narrative that there is an organic groundswell against the Republican Party due to DOGE cuts. He then made a series of slanderous claims against Musk and the supposed opposition to DOGE, despite polling data showing massive support for the initiative. “This shows again, the American people do not trust Elon Musk and Elon Musk is incompetent in his position,” the...

JUST IN: Elon Musk announces he is launching a lawsuit after former Rep. Jamaal Bowman called him a “thief” and a “Nazi” on live television. The comment from Bowman came last night on CNN. “I've had enough. Lawsuit inbound,” Musk said in response to the video clip below.

The ruling paves the way for the discovery process, where Trump’s lawyers are seeking the board’s internal deliberations in its 2018 awards to the New York Times and Washington Post for Russia collusion coverage. A Florida circuit court judge has denied the Pulitzer Prize Board’s motion to delay President Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against them on presidential immunity grounds, opening the door for the discovery of internal deliberations. Trump sued the board in 2022 for defamation after it refused to retract prizes awarded in 2018 to The New York Times and The Washington Post staffs for their coverage of the...

France's far-right leader Jordan Bardella Friday said he had cancelled his speech at a right-wing meeting in Washington after a "gesture alluding to Nazi ideology" by conservative firebrand Steve Bannon. The president of France's National Rally party, who is in the US capital, said he was not present when Bannon, one of the masterminds behind Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, made a gesture that has been described as a Nazi salute on Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Alan Dershowitz said he will sue Jack Schlossberg after the social media influencer and only grandson of John F. Kennedy falsely claimed the civil rights attorney and Harvard professor had killed his wife, The Post has learned. “I hope he will preserve all of his documents because I am about to commence a legal action against him,” Dershowitz, who has been married to Carolyn Cohen since 1986, told The Post Wednesday. “My lawyers have advised me now that I have a viable defamation action.” Earlier this month, Schlossberg, with wild, unkempt hair, filmed himself attacking the 86-year-old lawyer. “Alan Dershowitz...

"The President has met his burden of establishing jurisdiction to proceed with his asserted claims that the non-resident defendants acted with actual malice or reckless disregard for the truth by knowingly conspiring with the Florida resident defendant to defame the President. Therefore, the trial court correctly denied the non-resident defendants’ motion to dismiss the President’s claims over the asserted publication of defamatory 'FAKE NEWS.'"

A Florida Court of Appeals on Wednesday allowed President Donald Trump's lawsuit against the Pulitzer board to continue, ruling that the president had met his burden of proof that there was actual malice and bias against him. The defamation lawsuit stems from a Pulitzer board decision to award a prize to The New York Times and The Washington Post for reporting about alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The president also claimed he was defamed in a statement from the board, which came after Trump asked them to rescind the 2018 award. Trump filed the initial lawsuit in...

PANAMA CITY, Fla.—CNN’s lead attorney, dealing with a jury that appeared bored as he grilled a Navy veteran over his finances, pivoted toward an explosive charge on Thursday. He effectively accused Zachary Young of lying when he testified that he hadn’t worked since CNN aired a segment accusing him of operating in an "illegal black market." The attorney, David Axelrod, produced a document he said was a contract between Young and an employer, Helios Global Inc., that was signed one month after the November 2021 segment ran. He argued that the case wouldn’t have gone to trial if Young had...

On Monday, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who remains a loyal and respected ally within President Donald Trump’s orbit – posted a statement on X urging the President-elect to sue Gov. JB Pritzker for defamation after the Democratic governor repeatedly referred to Trump as an “adjudicated rapist.” Last Friday, ABC News agreed to a multi-million dollar settlement and agreed to contribute $15 million to President Trump’s presidential foundation and museum to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by Trump and his legal team against the network. Seizing on the opportunity – and continuing a more than 5-year feud with Pritzker, Blagojevich...

ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos is “apoplectic” and “humiliated” by the network’s decision to pay $16 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by President-elect Donald Trump, The Post has learned. Stephanopoulos, who claimed Trump had raped E. Jean Carroll during an interview with Republican lawmaker Nancy Mace, was particularly upset about being forced to apologize, a source with knowledge of the situation said. Another source told The Post that “George is defiant.” A third source said Stephanopoulos “is a very guarded person. His circle of trust is so small, and a lot of them don’t work [at ABC anymore].“...

On Monday, during his hosting duties on CNN’s “Newsroom,” Jim Acosta called on media outlets to “stand firm” against President-elect Donald Trump’s efforts to use the legal system to hold the press accountable. Acosta told CNN contributor Brian Stelter the media should not have to worry “about this sort of stuff.” “I just wonder, Brian, what this is going to mean for news organizations, for tech companies?” Acosta said. “We’re going to talk about the implications for tech companies in a moment, but it seems to me that there’s a lot of this bending the knee going on. And I’m...

ABC News host George Stephanopoulos ignored the news about his network’s massive settlement with President-elect Donald Trump on his Sunday show. Fox News Digital first reported on Saturday that ABC News and Stephanopoulos agreed to a settlement to avoid a costly trial over Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the network and anchor. News of the settlement, however, failed to appear on ABC’s "This Week." Instead, Stephanopoulos focused on stories about unidentified drones over New Jersey, ongoing conflicts in Syria and Trump’s cabinet picks. He also deleted his X account over the weekend. Stephanopoulos was the focus of the lawsuit after he...

‘Fox News Live’ co-host Arthel Neville reports on the breaking story.

ABC News and their top anchor George Stephanopoulos have reached a settlement with Donald Trump in his defamation suit, which will result in the news network paying the president-elect $15 million. The settlement was publicly filed on Saturday, revealing that the two parties have come to an agreement and avoided a costly trial. According to the settlement, ABC News will pay $15 million as a charitable contribution to a "Presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for Plaintiff, as Presidents of the United States of America have established in the past." Additionally, the network will pay $1 million...

President-elect Trump and anchor George Stephanopoulos will sit for depositions next week in Trump’s defamation case against ABC News, a judge ruled Friday. Trump sued the network and the anchor in March after Stephanopoulos repeatedly said on air that a jury found Trump “liable for rape” in a lawsuit brought by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. The jury had found Trump liable for sexual abuse under New York law, but not rape. Following a discovery hearing on Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette Reid ordered both Trump and Stephanopoulos to sit for depositions next week that could last up to four...

Establishmentarians struggling with the likelihood of having little to no representation in the incoming administration have spent weeks attacking several of President-elect Donald Trump's picks to helm federal agencies of consequence. Although Pete Hegseth, Trump's pick to run the Pentagon, has taken an inordinate amount of abuse, former National Security Council official Kash Patel has similarly become a top target for champions of the status quo, including Olivia Troye, a middling intelligence official in the George W. Bush administration who later served as an adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence. In conversation with identitarian MSNBC host Joy Reid this...

BREAKING: Kash Patel just sent a legal notice to Mike Pence's advisor, Olivia Troye, to immediately retract the defamatory statements she made about him or face massive legal action.On Joyles Reid's segment, Troye said, "Kash Patel is a delusional liar. And he would lie about making things up on operations. I think Mark Esper has talked about that as well. Where he put the lives of Navy SEALs at risk in an operation when it came to Nigeria." In their letter, Patel's lawyers said, "Litigation will be filed against you if you fail to publicly retract defamatory statements you made...

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) will be forced to open its books and reveal its sources of funding after a defamation suit it filed against a former employee completely backfired. US Magistrate Judge David Schultz ruled Monday that CAIR’s donors, funding sources – including potentially foreign ones – and any assets owned by the group are all within the “scope of permissible discovery” as part of former chapter leader Lori Saroya’s lawsuit against the controversial Muslim rights group. Saroya filed a federal defamation complaint against CAIR in January after the group dropped its own lawsuit against the former employee,...