Navy veteran Zachary Young has won a number of crucial trial motions in his defamation case against far-left CNN and Jake Tapper.
As Breitbart News reported, in November of 2021, during Biden’s disastrous evacuation of Afghanistan when the fake media were looking to turn anyone not named Joe Biden into a villain, Jake Tapper told his viewers, “Afghans trying to get out of the country face a black market full of promises, demands of exorbitant fees, and no guarantee of safety or success.”
He then turned the segment over to CNN correspondent Alex Marquardt, who said that “desperate Afghans are being exploited” by those offering evacuation services for “exorbitant, often impossible” costs.
“A picture of Young was then shown on the screen, with Marquardt saying that Nemex Enterprises was charging $75,000 for vehicle transport from Kabul to Pakistan and $14,500 for flights to the United Arab Emirates,” Breitbart narrated.
Four months later — four! — Jake Tapper tried to take it back. Jonathan Turley quotes Tapper’s statement:
And before we go, a correction. In November, we ran a story about Afghans desperate to pay high sums beyond the reach of average Afghans. The story included a lead-in and banner throughout the story that referenced a black market. The use of the term black market in the story was in error. The story included reporting on Zachary Young, a private operator who had been contacted by family members of Afghans trying to flee the country. We didn’t mean to suggest that Mr. Young participated in the black market. We regret the error and to Mr. Young, we apologize.
Too late.
After settlement negotiations collapsed, a trial was ordered and so far CNNLOL is looking at a losing hand. First off, reports Jonathan Turley, “the jury will be allowed to award punitive damages and his [Young’s] experts would be allowed to be heard by the jury on the damages in the case.”
Secondly, thanks to internal CNN emails, the court found that Young had enough “evidence of actual malice, express malice, and a level of conduct outrageous enough to open the door for him to seek punitive damages.”
Turley explains:
The evidence included messages from Marquardt that he wanted to “nail this Zachary Young mfucker” and thought the story would be Young’s “funeral.” After promising to “nail” Young, CNN editor Matthew Philips responded: “gonna hold you to that cowboy!” Likewise, CNN senior editor Fuzz Hogan described Young as “a shit.”
As is often done by media, CNN allegedly gave Young only two hours to respond before the story ran. It is a typical ploy of the press to claim that they waited for a response while giving the target the smallest possible window.
In this case, Young was able to respond in the short time and Marquardt messaged a colleague, “fucking Young just texted.”
Show me where in that attitude you have journalists doing their job, which is to seek the truth. Two hours to respond? Annoyed that “fucking Young” did respond? CNN is shit.
The court also ruled that Tapper’s namby-pamby “correction” four months later did not rise to the level needed to avoid punitive damages.
“The retraction/correction was not made during the other television shows in which the Segment aired. No retraction, correction or apology was posted on any online article or with any social media posting,” the court wrote. “Defendant’s representatives referred to the statement made on the Jake Tapper show as a correction rather than a retraction.”
Finally, and this is the most important ruling, the court “found that the Navy veteran was not a public figure and thus is not subject to the higher standard of proof associated with that status.”
“In 1964, a liberal majority of the Supreme Court held in New York Times v. Sullivan that defamation laws provide less protection for public figures because the First Amendment promotes robust discussion of matters of public importance,” Breitbart News senior legal contributor Ken Klukowski explained. “However, Justice Clarence Thomas and other judicial conservatives have explained that this exception is not part of the original public meaning of the First Amendment and therefore can be properly created only by state legislatures by amending their slander and libel laws.”
“Overruling New York Times and forcing lawmakers to actually adopt language for any carveouts from defamation laws,” Klukowski continued, “would help protect citizens like this Navy officer by forcing legacy media outlets to stop negligently trafficking in rumors that destroy the reputations of everyday Americans.”
And that is classic CNN right there — turning an everyday American into their villain of the week: Kyle Rittenhouse, George Zimmerman, Nick Sandmann, and countless innocent police officers.
If it goes to trial in early 2025, the jury will decide those punitive damages, and if 12 decent, everyday Americans sit on that jury, the poison that is CNN will be sued into the dirt where it belongs.
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