A defamation lawsuit fired off by Black Lives Matter leader DeRay Mckesson in December of 2017 against Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, AKA Judge Jeanine, was tossed Monday by a judge based on First Amendment grounds.
Mckesson accused Pirro of defamation over an appearance she made on “Fox & Friends” in September of 2017.
“In this particular case Deray Mckesson, the organizer actually was directing people, directing the violence,” said the Fox News personality, as reported by The Blaze. “You’ve got a police officer who was injured, he was injured at the direction of DeRay Mckesson.”
The Black Lives Matter leader organized the protest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where the officer Pirro referenced was injured.
Following the segment, Mckesson tagged the judge in a video clip of her commentary. “I was found not guilty & I didn’t direct any violence. In fact, I was protesting the violence of the police,” the activist wrote, referencing a failed lawsuit aimed at him and the Black Lives Matter movement. “Stop lying.”
The failed suit Mckesson was referencing was launched by an anonymous police officer who was injured at the Baton Rouge protest by a rock thrown by one of the social justice protesters in attendance. “Brian Jackson, a US district judge, dismissed the officer’s suit and ruled that Black Lives Matter was not an entity capable of being sued,” reported The Guardian, in 2017.
“Although many entities have utilized the phrase ‘black lives matter’ in their titles or business designations, Black Lives Matter itself is not an entity of any sort,” wrote Judge Jackson.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Robert Kalish acknowledged that Pirro’s commentary was protected speech under the First Amendment, but made sure to take a swing at the host for her apparently off-putting “behavior” and “rhetoric.”
Justice Kalish “noted that Pirro’s own lawyer had described her shtick as ‘loud, caustic and hard hitting,'” The New York Daily News points out.
“Pirro’s lack of temperament, and caustic commentary is what she is known, celebrated and frequently criticized for,” wrote Kalish, adding: “However divisive one might find the subject two-minute sequence, the law of this state protects the expressions of opinion it represents.”
“That the Court find’s Pirro statement’s to be protected statements of opinion does not mean this Court agrees with Pirro’s opinions or condones her behavior or rhetoric,” wrote the justice. “This Court is not blind to the undertones in this segment.”
Mckesson told the Daily News that he was “obviously disappointed” by the outcome of the suit.
“But as Fox argued and the judge recognized, when you have a certain reputation less is expected of you,” said the Black Lives Matter leader, taking a clear shot at Pirro.
Mckesson rose to prominence in the wake of the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, where he organized protests, some of which devolved into riots. Activists, such as Mckesson, peddled the false “hands up, don’t shoot” narrative.
The racial agitator also made waves when he gave a defense of looting during a two-day lecture at Yale University concerning the Black Lives Matter movement. “Looting for me isn’t violent,” he said, “it’s an expression of anger … another way to dissolve consent, pressing you to no longer keep me out of this space by destroying it.”
Naturally, the controversial figure was tapped by then-President Barack Obama for a meeting at the White House in February of 2016.