CNN wants a court to throw out a defamation lawsuit Introduced by Republican North Carolina Governor Mark Robinson which attacks the report that he made explicit postings on a pornography website’s message board. The network says Robinson presented no evidence that the network believed her story was false or aired it negligently.
The September report says Robinson, who ran unsuccessfully for governor this month, he left statements on a message board more than a decade ago that, in part, referred to himself as a “black NAZI” and said he enjoyed transgender pornography. The report says he preferred Adolf Hitler to then-President Barack Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. He said the high priest was “worse than a magician.”
Robinson, who is seeking to become the state’s first Black governor, said he did not write the messages and sued in October, before in-person voting began.
While filing a motion to dismiss in federal court in Raleigh on Thursday, CNN’s lawyers said Robinson’s arguments suggesting he was the victim of a computer hacking operation that created fake news would require an “incredible, ridiculous” chain of events.
In general, a public official claiming defamation must show that the defendant knew the statement made was false or made it without regard for the truth.
“Robinson did not and cannot allege facts showing that CNN published the article with actual malice,” attorney Mark Nebrig wrote in a statement supporting the motion to dismiss, adding that the lawsuit “does not contain a single allegation that shows CNN questioned its veracity.” including one about his report.’
For Robinson, he already had a history of inflammatory comments on issues like abortion LGBTQ+ rightsThe CNN story nearly led to the collapse of his campaign. After the report aired, most of his top campaign staff quit, Republican Governors Association ads stopped, and Republicans distanced themselves from him. including President-elect Donald Trump.
Robinson lost to Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein by nearly 15 points and will step down at the end of the year.
Robinson’s case was initially filed in state court. He says CNN chose to base its report in part on data from the NudeAfrica website, which was hacked years ago and ran on vulnerable and outdated software. His lawsuit says the network did nothing to verify the messages. He is seeking monetary damages.
Thursday’s release highlights the network’s story, including an episode that showed how CNN reporters connected Robinson to a username on the NudeAfrica site.
As the CNN story previously reported, the statement says the network matched the account details on the message board to Robinson’s other online accounts by comparing usernames, email addresses and his full name. Details disputed by the account holder are consistent with the length of Robinson’s marriage, where he was living at the time, and that Robinson and the account holder have mothers who worked at a historically Black university, the release said. CNN also said it found the NudeAfrica account’s headlines and spoken word figures used in Robinson’s social media posts.
“This is hardly a case where, as Robinson says, CNN ‘ignored or deliberately avoided the truth’ instead of investigating it,” Nebrige said, later adding that the network had “no reason to doubt that Robinson was the author of the posts.” to put .
Attorneys for Robinson did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Friday. The lawsuit alleges that anyone could have used Robinson’s breached data to create online accounts.
His state lawsuit also brought charges against Louis Love Money, a former porn store employee who alleged in a music video and media interview that for several years beginning in the 1990s, Robinson went to a porn store where Money worked and that Robinson bought porn videos from him. . . Robinson said that was a lie.
the money he filed his impeachment motion in the state case. But CNN has since taken the case to federal court, arguing that the claims against Money are unrelated to the proper venue of a North Carolina resident like Robinson and a Georgia-based company like CNN.
