Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann has reportedly received a settlement from CNN after suing the left-wing network for smearing him last year.
“CNN agreed Tuesday to settle a lawsuit with Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann,” Fox 19 reported. “The amount of the settlement was not made public during a hearing at the federal courthouse in Covington.”
Sandmann also filed lawsuits against The Washington Post and NBC Universal, each for $250 million or more, and is reportedly planning to “sue Gannett, owners of The Enquirer.”
Sandmann’s attorneys, Todd McMurtry and Lin Wood, filed a $275 million lawsuit against CNN in March of last year in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.
“CNN was probably more vicious in its direct attacks on Nicholas than The Washington Post. And CNN goes into millions of individuals’ homes,” Wood told Fox News’ Mark Levin last year. “CNN couldn’t resist the idea that here’s a guy with a young boy, with that Make America Great Again cap on. So they go after him.”
“They really went after Nicholas with the idea that he was part of a mob that was attacking the Black Hebrew Israelites, yelling racist slurs at the Black Hebrew Israelites. Totally false,” Wood continued. “Now you say you’ve seen the tape; if you took the time to look at the full context of what happened that day, Nicholas Sandmann did absolutely nothing wrong. He was, as I’ve said to others, he was the only adult in the room.”
In an interview on Fox News last year, McMurtry told anchor Sandra Smith, “Well, what CNN’s tagline is is ‘facts first.’ And what we believe their reporting was in this circumstance was lies first, cover up second, and facts not yet determined by that organization. So the difference between this lawsuit and the other lawsuit that we have filed is that CNN is a very significant media organization with a much broader reach than, say, the Washington Post. It has Twitter followers of 41 million people. It published four videos. Nine online articles that were tweeted out. So that’s millions and millions and millions of repetitions of the lies and falsehoods that CNN spread.”
“Well, we’ve talked about the impact on Nicholas Sandmann a number of times and it — it is significant,” McMurtry continued. “Nicholas Sandmann was a 16-year-old man who had a perfect reputation. He was loved by his parents, respected at his school, and had many good friends at Covington Catholic High School. So he was a person that was doing very well in life, and due to his strong character, he still is. But nevertheless, his character has now been determined by the lies issued by CNN. So the facts were not first, the lies were.”
In early February, Sandmann’s lawyers released a list of 54 individuals and news organizations that they sent letters to instructing them to preserve evidence for potential lawsuits. The list includes:
- The Washington Post
- The New York Times
- Cable News Network, Inc. (CNN)
- The Guardian
- National Public Radio
- TMZ
- Atlantic Media Inc.
- Capitol Hill Publishing Corp.
- Diocese of Covington
- Diocese of Lexington
- Archdiocese of Louisville
- Diocese of Baltimore
- Ana Cabrera (CNN)
- Sara Sidner (CNN)
- Erin Burnett (CNN)
- S.E. Cupp (CNN)
- Elliot C. McLaughlin (CNN)
- Amanda Watts (CNN)
- Emanuella Grinberg (CNN)
- Michelle Boorstein (Washington Post)
- Cleve R. Wootson Jr. (Washington Post)
- Antonio Olivo (Washington Post)
- Joe Heim (Washington Post)
- Michael E. Miller (Washington Post)
- Eli Rosenberg (Washington Post)
- Isaac Stanley-Becker (Washington Post)
- Kristine Phillips (Washington Post)
- Sarah Mervosh (New York Times)
- Emily S. Rueb (New York Times)
- Maggie Haberman (New York Times)
- David Brooks (New York Times)
- Shannon Doyne
- Kurt Eichenwald
- Andrea Mitchell (NBC/MSNBC)
- Savannah Guthrie (NBC)
- Joy Reid (MSNBC)
- Chuck Todd (NBC)
- Noah Berlatsky
- Elisha Fieldstadt (NBC)
- Eun Kyung Kim
- HBO
- Bill Maher
- Warner Media
- Conde Nast
- GQ
- Heavy.com
- The Hill
- The Atlantic
- Bustle.com
- Ilhan Omar
- Elizabeth Warren
- Kathy Griffin
- Alyssa Milano
- Jim Carrey
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