American Spectator Magazine Deletes All Mentions Of Brett Kimberlin Following Apparent Settlement

from the why? dept

We recently wrote about the Brett Kimberlin saga -- which is long and involved, and which we'd avoided jumping into for a long time, given how complex and nutty it was. If you're not familiar with it, go back and read that post to catch up on it, but the super short version is that Kimberlin has been suing a lot of people, in large part because he doesn't like the way they're characterizing his past. And he's more or less indicated that he intends to tie people up in court for as long as possible, leading some to put out calls to have him declared a vexatious litigant. Most of the folks he's sued are fighting back, and so far are winning (easily), but apparently the publication The American Spectator not only caved in and likely settled, but it appears to have also deleted all stories from its site about Kimberlin. That seems exceptionally questionable. Pretty much everyone who's looked at these cases has said that Kimberlin has little legal leg to stand on. Many of his legal claims could be summed up as "those people said stuff about me that makes me look bad, and I don't like it."

It was pretty clear that the American Spectator settled when Kimberlin filed to dismiss the charges against the publication with prejudice, which usually suggests the parties worked out a settlement. But to then completely remove all stories that mention Kimberlin entirely raises questions about what sort of standard the American Spectator has concerning its own journalistic integrity. I will admit that I know little about the publication, and don't recall ever having read anything there, but given Kimberlin's lack of success in court to date, it's difficult to see why a publication like that would agree to settle in this manner.

Filed Under: brett kimerblin
Companies: american spectator