In 2011, former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin created an ad that featured 20 Democrats that she wanted to see defeated in the 2012 election. The ad featured crosshairs overlaying congressional districts, a powerful graphic that Democrats claimed incited people to violence because one of the districts with crosshairs on it was Rep. Gabby Giiffords' district.
Giffords was shot and wounded on Jan. 8, 2011, by a mentally ill man, Jared Loughner. There was zero evidence that Loughner was "inspired" by the crosshairs ad, and even less evidence that he'd seen it. Nevertheless, Democrats shamelessly politicized the shooting, trying to blame Palin and the Republicans for "violent images."
Then, in 2017, the New York Times editorial board published an editorial that tried to connect Palin directly to the 2011 shooting. The editorial claimed a "clear" and "direct" link between the map and the shooting, which Palin argued was defamatory. The suit sought damages from the New York Times and the editorial page editor and author of the offending editorial, James Bennett.
The suit was initially dismissed on procedural grounds. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the case in 2019, finding that Palin had plausibly stated a defamation claim. Unfortunately, the judge put his thumb on the scale, saying he "planned to toss the claims no matter what verdict the jury came up with. The jurors found out that information via a push alert on their phones as they deliberated," reports the New York Sun. They ended up acquitting the Times and Bennett.
An appeals court, citing numerous errors by Judge Jed Rakoff, ordered a retrial. That trial began last week, and the highlight came when opinion editor James Bennett took the stand on Friday.
A lawyer gave an emotional Mr. Bennet a box of tissues as he answered questions under oath.
“I do apologize to Gov. Palin for this mistake,” a choked up Mr. Bennet said. Mr. Bennet is the brother of Democratic Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, who is a possible presidential candidate in 2028. “I was really upset, and I still am, obviously.”
The Times acknowledged that the editorial was inaccurate, but claimed that it was an “honest mistake.” It published a correction below the editorial the next day and has vigorously defended itself.
“I am ultimately responsible for it, and I take responsibility for it,” Mr. Bennet testified, adding that he was not trying to smear Ms. Palin, the former Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential nominee.
I'm sorry, but no matter how "sorry" Mr. Bennet says he is, the damage has been done, and the words can't be recalled. I'm sure he feels just terrible that if he loses, he's going to owe Mrs. Palin a considerable amount of money.
Bennett's apology didn't faze Palin in the slightest. The Associated Press reports that Palin told another reporter, “Let’s see, how many years ago was the untruth?”
There's a lot at stake in this libel trial. Conservative legal circles are moving to create a more plaintiff-friendly libel standard for demonstrating "actual malice," which is a fairly high bar now, to be sure.
If Ms. Palin prevails, Mr. Trump and his allies will almost certainly promote the victory as a powerful rebuke of the press. Her lawyers have said they hope to use the case as a vehicle to get the Supreme Court to reconsider longstanding precedents that make it harder for public figures to win lawsuits against journalists and others.
“The case is, in many respects, an old-school media libel action resurrected into a newly complicated defamation landscape,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a law professor at the University of Utah. “It may prove to be a real barometer of the changing public attitude about the press and the changing appetite for American press freedom.”
The judge presiding in this trial is Judge Rakoff, the same judge who let it be known before the verdict in the first trial that he was going to throw the case out regardless of what the jury said.
I'm not optimistic about the outcome.
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