A Trump administration official filed a $50 million lawsuit against CNN for defamation, according to Fox News.
Kash Patel, the chief of staff to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, filed the lawsuit this week, alleging the network published “unfounded left-wing political narratives” about him.
The lawsuit specifically names CNN and five of its reporters, and cites several examples in which CNN “deliberately or recklessly conveyed a false message” about Patel to “sensationalize the news” and humiliate Patel.
The reporters named as defendants inlcude Barbara Starr, Zachary Cohen, Ryan Browne, Alex Marquardt and Nicole Gaouette.
In one CNN report Patel cited, the network calls Patel a “Trump loyalist.”
And in another, the network accused Patel of working “to discredit Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.”
CNN “attacked” Patel because “CNN was deeply invested in promoting the Russia collusion hoax and the fraudulent ‘dossier’ manufactured by Fusion GPS,” the lawsuit states.
Patel’s attorney, Steven Biss, accused CNN of intentionally lying about Patel in order to sow disinformation about his work for the Trump administration.
“The Defendants fabricated the Defamatory Statements and knew, therefore, that the statements were false. They knew that Kash was not the source of a single conspiracy theory and had no connection to any conspiracy theory about Biden,” Biss argued, according to Fox News.
“Defendants provide no evidence or example of any stories spread by Kash about Biden because there are none,” he said. “CNN reported on the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry and read the Democrats’ report, and knew, therefore, that no evidence was uncovered connecting Kash.”
In doing so, CNN “harbored extreme professional and personal animus, bias, spite, and ill-will towards Kash as a result of Kash’s revelations of CNN’s corrupt business practices and deceitful misreporting,” Biss continued.
Patel is seeking presumed damages, actual damages, special damages and punitive damages as a result of the defendants’ statements and actions, according to the lawsuit.
He is also asking the court to grant a permanent injunction prohibiting CNN reporters from repeating the defamatory speech.
