Free Republic

President Joe Biden could face a civil defamation suit from newly-acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse for calling him a “white supremacist” last year — without evidence, and before Biden was able to enjoy the immunities of presidential office. Rittenhouse was, by then, a “public figure” for the purposes of defamation law, and would have to show that any defendant acted with “actual malice” — that is, with reckless disregard for the truth. He could arguably do so for Biden’s false statement. When Biden made the now-infamous, and false, claim about Rittenhouse at the end of last September, more than a month had...

NEW YORK (Reuters) -A New York trial judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the New York Times from publishing some materials concerning the conservative activist group Project Veritas, a rare step that the newspaper said violated decades of First Amendment protections for the process. The order by Justice Charles Wood of the Westchester County Supreme Court covers memos written by a Project Veritas lawyer and obtained by the Times. Wood scheduled a hearing for next Tuesday to consider a longer prohibition against publication, and whether the Times should remove references to privileged attorney-client information in a Nov. 11 article about Project...

CBS News deleted a November 11, 2021, tweet declaring Kyle Rittenhouse a murderer, even though Rittenhouse’s trial is ongoing and the verdict on his August 25, 2020, actions has not been reached. The deleted tweet reported on Rittenhouse’s November 10, 2021, testimony, in which he broke down in tears while talking. The tweet said, “Kyle Rittenhouse testified in his own murder trial yesterday, breaking down in tears as he told the jury he murdered two men at a Black Lives Matter protest last year in self-defense.” Regarding the first shooting fatality of August 25, 2020, Rittenhouse testified that he was...

Veteran journalist John Stossel sued Facebook on Wednesday for a fact-check that was added to a post he made about California’s 2020 forest fires. “This case presents a simple question: do Facebook and its vendors defame a user who posts factually accurate content, when they publicly announce that the content failed a ‘fact-check’ and is ‘partly false,’ and by attributing to the user a false claim that he never made? The answer, of course, is yes,” says the complaint, filed in a California federal court. Representatives for Facebook did not immediately return a request for comment on the lawsuit.

We have been following a slew of defamation lawsuits by political figures over the last few years. (See, e.g., here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). For torts scholars, it has been a bonanza of interesting issues touching on every element of defamation law. There is now an important ruling out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit that could have enormous implications not just for the media but anyone who retweets stories or claims. The appellate panel ruled unanimously for Rep. Devin Nunes against journalist Ryan Lizza...

A federal judge just sided with Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) in his defamation suit against The Washington Post. . According to the federal judge, the Washington Post published an article with “at least reckless disregard of the truth that it had previously reported.” . From The Epoch Times: The paper said in its motion to dismiss that its correction erased any claims to malice, but U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols rejected that argument. “A newspaper’s own prior (and correct) reporting that is inconsistent with its later (and incorrect) reporting could certainly give the paper reason to seriously doubt the truth...

When the New York Times stepped into the ring with Project Veritas, it thought it would be a pretty easy victory, but the group known for undercover videos and on the scene fact-finding is a lot scrappier than the “paper of record” anticipated. Now, after a recent court decision, the Times is on the backfoot.According to the Project Veritas website, Justice Charles D. Wood of the Supreme Court of New York in Westchester County handed down a ruling on Wednesday that the New York Times’ motion to dismiss the defamation lawsuit against them by Project Veritas is denied.It all started...

‘60 Minutes’ falsehoods provide the perfect vehicle for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to prove that Democrat propagandists posing as the press deserve no heightened legal protection.On Sunday, CBS launched another attack on a conservative politician based on lies when “60 Minutes” peddled a conspiracy theory targeting Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. If wise, DeSantis will use this latest attack to launch a counteroffensive against the corrupt media, by suing for defamation and challenging the standard for liability established by the Supreme Court in New York Times v. Sullivan.As The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway detailed yesterday, “60 Minutes” ignored the real scandals...

Two of former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s relatives filed a $75 million defamation lawsuit against CNN on Thursday.Flynn’s brother and sister-in-law, Jack and Leslie Flynn, sued the network in U.S. District Court in New York City for allegedly portraying them and their family as supporters of QAnon, an online conspiracy theory. The Flynns claimed that CNN deceptively edited footage in a Feb. 4 segment on the conspiracy to implicate the Flynn family, according to The Daily Beast. As the outlet reports:The segment largely shows footage of a meeting of QAnon supporters, including the photogenic icon of the Capitol riot...

In a blistering dissent, Judge Laurence Silberman said The New York Times and Washington Post are 'Democratic Party broadsheets.The control of major media by one political party is a dangerous threat to the country, a federal judge warned in a blistering dissent that called for courts to revisit libel laws that generally protect the press from being held liable for their reporting. “It should be borne in mind that the first step taken by any potential authoritarian or dictatorial regime is to gain control of communications, particularly the delivery of news,” wrote Judge Laurence Silberman of the D.C. Circuit for...

West Vancouver billionaire Frank Giustra has been given the go-ahead to sue Twitter in a B.C. courtroom over the social media giant's publication of a series of tweets tying him to baseless conspiracy theories involving pedophile rings and Bill and Hillary Clinton. In a ruling released Thursday, Justice Elliott Myers found that Giustra's history and presence in British Columbia, combined with the possibility the tweets may have been seen by as many as 500,000 B.C. Twitter users, meant a B.C. court should have jurisdiction over the case. It's a victory not only for Giustra — whose philanthropic activities have earned...

(CN) — Defamation and harassment claims brought by students at Kentucky’s Covington Catholic High School against CNN, the Washington Post and NBC were dismissed by a federal judge Wednesday after he found that none of the twelve plaintiffs had been defamed or unlawfully threatened. The suit stems from a confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial in January of 2019 during the annual March for Life, and followed on the heels of CNN’s settlement with fellow student Nicholas Sandmann. Sandmann’s tense encounter with Native American activist Nathan Phillips at the march went viral, sparking widespread ire on social media from commenters who...

It seems that the Democrat new tactic - threaten and file lawsuits against news sources disseminating election fraud information, it is flowing down to grass roots level also. We see this in the threats of lawsuits against Faux News, Newsmax, the Cooomer lawsuit, and now this one: "President Trump Is On Target In Wisconsin – Ballots Identified in Pristine Condition Similar to Fraudulent Ballots in Georgia and Michigan. President Trump’s team’s recent lawsuit in Wisconsin must be over the target. Is this why a Madison, Wisconsin Attorney pushed back and threatened Gateway Pundit after our reporting on absentee and ‘indefinitely...

Kash Patel, the chief of staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, has filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit against CNN and several of its top reporters, claiming the liberal network published false statements and promoted “unfounded left-wing political narratives” by painting Patel as a pro-Trump conspiracy theorist seeking to smear President-elect Joe Biden. The complaint filed on Friday in Virginia Circuit Court named CNN reporters Barbara Starr, Zachary Cohen, Ryan Browne, Alex Marquardt and Nicole Gaouette as defendants, in addition to the network itself. It claims CNN “deliberately or recklessly conveyed a false message” to sensationalize the “news”...

Rudy Giuliani is an exaggerated cartoon metaphor for millennials’ slow awaking about the fallibility and tragic decline of their parents. He graduated from law school in 1968, went on to serve as a federal prosecutor, and eventually became mayor of New York. When 9/11 happened, we were all scared and confused, and Rudy stood up there and gave us some confidence in the future. He looked like a leader. And then, as his star faded, there came a decade of irrelevance. His former prowess battered, but his pride intact, he reached for the spotlight with one final, self-destructive act: enthralling...

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Twitter to reveal who was behind the account that allegedly spread the conspiracy about the death of slain Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer Seth Rich. U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu in Oakland, Calif., ordered that Twitter must turn over information about the account @whyspertech. That account allegedly forged FBI documents falsely linking Rich’s killing to the Wikileaks hack of Democratic emails and provided them to Fox News. NPR first reported on the order. Twitter has sought to keep the identity of the user secret, arguing that disclosing that information would violate the First Amendment....

The motion to have former Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann's defamation lawsuit against the NY Times, Rolling Stone, ABC, & CBS dismissed was denied by the court. A previous motion by NBC was also denied. And the Washington Post has already settled the case against it by paying an undisclosed amount in damages. Lawyers for the Times called the latest ruling "out of step with modern libel laws. It has been a well-established principle that when the alleged victim is a public figure he must prove malice motivated the inaccurate media reporting and the derogatory statements made about...

In spite of the findings of an independent investigation and the rulings of a Kentucky grand jury, leftists are still claiming that Louisville Metro Police Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly is a “murderer.” Mattingly was one of the officers involved in the shooting of Breonna Taylor. Taylor was the 26-year-old black woman who was killed on March 13 when police officers executed a warrant on her apartment during a narcotics investigation. As leftists continue to defame Mattingly’s character, the officer’s lawyer has promised that legal recourse will be sought out to right the many wrongs of the left’s ignorant claims. Many of these...

Rapper Cardi B was reportedly hit with a defamation lawsuit after she allegedly shared “edited” video of an altercation with people on a Long Island beach. The beachgoers are suing Cardi B, the rapper’s sister, Hennessy Carolina, and Michelle Diaz for assault, battery, defamation, and civil rights violations from an alleged altercation that occurred Sept. 6, according to an article published by ABC 7. “These peaceful Suffolk County residents were quietly enjoying a Sunday at the Smith Point beach with their families, when rap celebrity Hennessy Carolina suddenly approached them, raging, spitting, insulting, assaulting, defaming and threatening them, all the...

U.S. Judge Jed S. Rakoff, a Bill Clinton appointee, allowed Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against the New York Times to proceed, saying that a jury should decide whether editorial page editor James Bennet acted with “actual malice” in writing that Palin was responsible for “political incitement” that led to the mass shooting in Tuscon, Arizona, in January 2011. The Times published the editorial in the wake of a June 2017 mass shooting by a deranged leftist who targeted Republican members of Congress at their baseball practice. The Tuscon shooter was mentally disturbed; accusations against Palin had long since been disproved....