Sarah Palin Sues New York Times, Alleging Defamation in Editorial
Former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin has filed a defamation lawsuit against the New York Times.
The suit, filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, accuses The Times of publishing a “fabricated story” and violating “the law and its own policies.”
Palin’s alleges a recent editorial published by the Gray Lady that tied ads run by her political action committee to the 2011 shooting of Gabby Giffords.
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The Times published the article following the shooting of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) at a baseball game in Virginia. Titled “America’s Lethal Politics,” the piece initially linked activity by Palin’s political action committee to another shooting in Arizona in 2011 that killed six people and injured Giffords and a dozen others. That link was never established, and the Times issued a correction and apologized on Twitter for the error.
We published an editorial last night on the shooting at the G.O.P. men's baseball team practice field in Alexandria.
— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) June 15, 2017
We got an important fact wrong, incorrectly linking political incitement and the 2011 shooting of Giffords. No link was ever established.
— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) June 15, 2017
Following the editorial’s publication, Palin blasted the Times’ actions as “sickening” and said the “media is doing exactly what I said … should not be done.” She had earlier said she was exploring legal options.
“Despite commenting as graciously as I could on media coverage of yesterday’s shooting, alas, today a perversely biased media’s knee-jerk blame game is attempting to destroy innocent people with lies and more fake news,” she wrote on Facebook after the Virginia shooting. “As I said yesterday, I’d hoped the media had collectively matured since the last attack on a Representative when media coverage spewed blatant lies about who was to blame. There’s been no improvement. The NYT has gotten worse.”
The Times on Tuesday told CNN’s Dylan Byers it had not reviewed the suit, but said it would “defend against any claim vigorously.”
.@NYTimes spox tells me they have not reviewed @SarahPalinUSA’s claim yet "but will defend against any claim vigorously.” Full story to come https://t.co/KxpuOU4z6Q
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) June 28, 2017
