CNN report said North Carolina candidate for governor made explicit posts on website’s message board
Mark Robinson, North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, announced a lawsuit Tuesday against CNN over its recent report alleging he made explicit racial and sexual posts on a pornography website’s message board, calling the reporting reckless and defamatory.
The lawsuit, filed in Wake county superior court, comes less than four weeks after a television report that led many fellow GOP elected officials and candidates, including Donald Trump, to distance themselves from Robinson’s gubernatorial campaign. Robinson announced the lawsuit at a news conference in Raleigh.
“Calling the report reckless and defamatory” but not incorrect.
True. Though if you read the original CNN article, the circumstantial evidence is fairly damning. I don’t think he has any chance of getting out from under this.
Also, in a legal context, I think there very well may be a distinction between claiming a report is defamatory versus claiming it is false. As per Wikipedia:
The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions that are falsifiable
distinction between claiming a report is defamatory versus claiming it is false.
A statement is not defamatory if it’s not false. It might be embarrassing and potentially damaging, but not defamation.
“There are five essential elements to defamation: (1) The accusation is false; and (2) it impeaches the subject’s character; and (3) it is published to a third person; and (4) it damages the reputation of the subject; and (5) that the accusation is done intentionally or with fault such as wanton disregard of facts.” - Ron Hankin, Navigating the Legal Minefield of Private Investigations: A Career-Saving Guide for Private Investigators, Detectives, And Security Police, Looseleaf Law Publications, 2008, p. 59.
Can’t wait for whatever comes out in discovery.
Ooooh. Discovery, you say?
Bet that will unearth even more Nazi/Porn weirdness.
I think it’s more likely that he’ll demand to settle or simply drop the lawsuit. Typical SLAPP behaviour.
CNN will likely try to have it dismissed because the legal fees will surely be astronomical.
Sadly it won’t ever get to that phase. This is just so he can claim it’s a lie between now and election day. He’ll quietly drop the lawsuit about a week after the election.
I wish it were required that both parties agree to the lawsuit being dropped for it not to continue. I’d love to see this frivolous bullshit forced into a courtroom against the plaintiffs will by the defendants.
Things have been so crazy I forgot about this. Thanks for the reminder, Mark Robinson.
Right, if he hadn’t brought it up again we’d have all moved on to the next news item. Thanks Mark, and let’s see how your case goes.
This will be an interesting court case.
If cnn can prove what they reported then he’s just digging a deeper hole.
If cnn can’t prove it they are in deep doggy doo doo.
I’m going out on a limb, just a hunch really, and I think CNN will come out of this just fine. Robinson is the man with a shovel, and he’s gonna dig.
i’d venture to guess they wouldn’t publish something like this without some pretty ironclad “beyond a reasonable doubt” proof it was him
Its pretty obvious. They use the idea of reasonable doubt in the investigation, but then point out specific instances of him basically saying the same thing on both Twitter and Nude Africa, using terms of phrase that are very uncommon, generally on the same day. It was pretty damning.
Robinson’s entire defense so far has been to claim this is a hoax and when asked how posts on pages going back years can be hoaxed, he gives a “trust me, bro” response.
Yeah, the dude got caught dead to rights. This is a poor attempt at damage control but an excellent example of the Streisand effect. Whether he wins or loses in November I expect the suit will be dropped after the election because he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
If cnn can’t prove it they are in deep doggy doo doo.
Not really. They came with the receipts, showing time after time that the commenter shared personal details and used indiosyncratic turns of phrase that Robinson repeated on public accounts and forums. They had a very reasonable belief that it was true, and never claimed more than that. In the US, for a public figure, that’s generally more than enough.
