Nick Sandmann's Wacky QAnon Supporting Lawyer Threatens Reporters For 'Speculating' On Washington Post's Settlement With Sandmann

from the why-so-mad-lin? dept

On Friday, we wrote about the bad reporting concerning Nick Sandmann's settlement with the Washington Post, that nearly every knowledgeable lawyer figures was likely for "nuisance value" to get rid of the lawsuit. We noted that the NY Post's coverage of it misleadingly suggested that the kid got many millions of dollars, when there's no evidence to support that conclusion, and plenty to suggest he got very little. If you want a thorough debunking of "the kid got paid" narrative, this thread by @RespectableLawyer lays out the details. As we had noted in our post, the court had already rejected nearly all of the claims in the case, and only allowed it to be reinstated to allow for very narrow discovery on very narrow issues which Sandmann almost certainly would not have won on. There was basically no chance Sandmann would win the case. So, a nuisance fee settlement makes it worthwhile to everyone. The paper gets out of the case for less than the cost of going through discovery and the whole summary judgment process, and Sandmann gets to say he got paid, without ever saying how little.

However, on Monday, Sandmann's lawyer, L. Lin Wood (who you may recall from his ability to lose one of the rare defamation cases that I thought actually had a chance to succeed, against Elon Musk) completely lost his shit on Twitter because enough people were calling out the fact that Sandmann most likely got peanuts, which destroyed the narrative Wood has been trying to sell. Wood, who apparently is now a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory based on his willingness to include the #WWG1WGA tag in his Twitter profile (if you're not familiar, it stands for the silly QAnon phrase: "where we go one, we go all"), has apparently decided that merely speculating on the settlement amounts violates agreements people were not a party to.

Either way, Wood started threatening people and CNN. In separate tweets he accused both Brian Stelter (an on-air CNN personality) and Asha Rangappa (a lawyer and law professor who sometimes appears on CNN) for "speculating" on the settlement between Sandmann and the Washington Post. He even said that if Stelter isn't fired, he'll sue CNN.

Wood is arguing that CNN on air talent is violating a confidentiality agreement that was part of the settlement in a different case (CNN settled a similar case with Sandmann, likely on similar terms, back in January, at which point we wrote about similarly misleading reporting regarding the settlement). With Stelter, he's arguing that merely retweeting a lawyer suggesting that the most likely outcome of the Washington Post case was a nuisance fee settlement is a violation of that confidentiality agreement. With Rangappa, it's her own speculation.

First off, neither Stelter nor Rangappa are even remotely connected to the Washington Post settlement, so they're not parties to the case and clearly are not restricted by any confidentiality agreement and are free to speculate (or in Stelter's case, to retweet someone else's speculation) of the Washington Post settlement. The only way there might be a tiny (extremely weak) argument is if they were employed by the Washington Post. But even then they would have no actual insight into the actual settlement terms or amounts, and speculating is not violating a confidentiality settlement when they have no awareness of the terms. But to say that CNN employees are somehow violating the confidentiality agreement in a separate case for speculating on a different case is... just wacky nonsense.

Of course, many lawyers who understand this stuff pointed out that Wood freaking out that it violates confidentiality agreements to say that he settled the Sandmann cases for nuisance value... certainly seems to suggest that Wood is effectively confirming that it's true. Of course, after a bunch of people started to say that, he started insisting that his problem is with "false speculation" violating confidentiality agreements, but that makes no sense. That's like when the White House tries to argue that a leak of classified information is false. If it's false, it's not classified info. Claiming it's a leak confirms it's accurate.

Here, if anyone is violating a confidentiality agreement (which, again, they are not) it would be in revealing information to that is covered by the agreement. Speculating -- and even more bizarrely -- speculating falsely, is unlikely to be much of a violation. At best, Wood might be able to argue that there's some sort of total gag order that came with the settlements saying that CNN/WaPo and staff won't ever discuss anything having to do with Nick Sandmann and his sketchy lawsuits. I'd be surprised if either company agreed to such things, but it's not crazy, and the insurance companies backing CNN might have even been willing to agree to such nonsense terms.

But that's still not going to do very much here. There's no way on-air talent was privy to any of the details, and it's hard to see how a gag order would extend to them.

Also, it kind of makes you wonder why Wood would be so insistent on this here. If he really pressured CNN into agreeing to such a total gag order, why would he do that unless it's to hide a terribly tiny settlement for his client? If he actually won big money for Sandmann, he'd be excited about it, not negotiating for CNN to keep the details quiet. And why would he be so angry about anyone talking about the details of the settlement unless he didn't want people speculating on how little he was actually able to secure?

The whole Twitter freak out did his own client a huge disservice, and filing any followup lawsuits will likely only serve to harm his client even more.

Filed Under: asha rangappa, brian stelter, confidentiality, defamation, lin wood, nick sandmann, nuisance, settlements
Companies: cnn, washington post

The Rorshach Test Of The Covington Catholic Boy's DC Encounter Now Extends To Bogus Lawsuits And Confidential Settlements

from the everyone-sees-what-they-want-to-see dept

Buckle up folks, because this story takes a few twists and turns, and some of them may make you angry -- though I hope people will hold back their kneejerk reactions, because that kind of thing is what created this mess in the first place.

As you probably recall, a year ago, there was a whole viral media shitstorm regarding an encounter in Washington DC between some kids from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky, Native American activist Nathan Phillips, and a bunch of other people, including members of a group known as the Black Israelites, who appeared to be egging everyone on. A first video that made the viral rounds on Twitter just showed the encounter between CCH student Nick Sandmann, clad in a red MAGA hat, and staring down Phillips who was banging a drum. Later videos added in more context, including the Black Israelites and their role in the whole thing. One of the points a few people raised is that your interpretation of the whole thing is very much a Rorschach test for what you already believe. You can reasonably argue that people completely misrepresented the encounter and you can reasonably argue that they did not.

It is a subjective issue. You see it through your own context and experiences, and it comes down to each and everyone's opinion. I'd personally argue that there was a little bit of truth in nearly all of the viewpoints, and not having the entire context is not akin to false statements, but rather simply not having the full picture. As more context was added, many people changed their views, and that's cool too.

But given that these are subjective opinions, the idea that one might sue over them is simply batshit insane. And yet, people rushed to sue. In particular, we highlighted how the CCH student at the center of all of this sued the Washington Post, and later both NBC and CNN, for their coverage. Sandmann was represented by L. Lin Wood and Todd McMurtry. (For what it's worth, Wood recently lost that high profile defamation case against Elon Musk on behalf of cave diver Vern Unsworth). We found little in the lawsuits to be compelling, and were not at all surprised when a judge tossed out the one against the Washington Post, noting that everything they published was protected by the 1st Amendment. However, that case has been reinstated on fairly narrow grounds, following an amended complaint that targets some very specific language used by the Post. I'd still be surprised if he won, but the more narrow claims do at least have slightly more validity to them, especially if the court agrees that Sandmann is not a public figure (which would lower the bar for a defamation claim).

Earlier this week, news broke that CNN and Sandmann had agreed to settle that complaint -- and once again we had a bit of a Rorschach test. The terms of the settlement appear to be totally confidential, which is disappointing, but not at all uncommon. It is, in fact, possible that no money exchanged hands at all. However, many people who support Sandmann are insisting that this is vindication for him, even if that's not at all clear. Some are even saying that CNN must have paid "in the millions." Again, no information on the settlement is public, and to say that this was vindication or to speculate on any settlement amount seems ridiculous -- especially given that the entire thrust of the lawsuit was about news media commenting on issues without knowing the full details or context of the story.

But the story then got even stranger. Because on Wednesday, PJ Media had a headline trumpeting that author Reza Aslan would "face the music" for tweeting that Sandmann had "a punchable face." Already that should have raised alarm bells, because there is literally nothing at all defamatory in saying someone has "a punchable face." PJ Media -- who at times pretends to support free speech -- acted as though this was a legitimate lawsuit. Of course, tellingly, even though they said they had a copy of the complaint, reporter Tyler O'Neil did not link to or publish the lawsuit. Perhaps because it's utter and complete garbage. You can read it here.

It was actually filed last August. And here's where we'll go back a bit. Right after the original Sandmann incident, we had noted that infamously silly lawyer Robert Barnes, who has filed multiple trollish lawsuits that have flopped spectacularly, announced that he would represent any of the Covington kids pro bono in filing lawsuits.

Yet, you will note that Sandmann's lawsuits were not filed with Barnes as his lawyer, but Lin Wood and Todd McMurtry. However, the lawsuit that PJ Media was trumpeting, about a comment on Sandmann, was filed by Barnes. So this lead to some head scratching. Had Sandmann retained both lawyers for different cases? The answer is no. Barnes simply filed lawsuits on behalf of the Covington kids as John Does.

It's not even clear that any of the Covington kids are actual clients of his. They may be, but the filing doesn't confirm that this is actually true. And the key Covington kid, Sandmann, has made it absolutely clear that he is not a Barnes' client, and that this lawsuit is obviously bullshit -- because with regards to Aslan's statement, it only references Sandmann (and his allegedly "punchable face") rather than any of the other Covington kids:

If you're unable to see that image, it's Sandmann asking Barnes on Twitter:

... would you like to explain why you’re suing for me without my permission? You’ve blocked my lawyers on twitter and now claim you’re suing over the Reza Aslan tweet? Retract and stop lying to the public.

Yes. Barnes can claim all he wants that he’s filed it on behalf of the covington kids but we both know that isn’t true. Reza’s tweet references only one kid, and i take up a majority of the picture. The article he even linked (now deleted) stated this.

It clearly states it’s about me in the title!

And we're not done with the strangeness yet. The lawsuit itself was filed last August. So why was it making news now? Because Aslan just deleted that tweet. Why did he just delete that tweet now, a year later? Because Barnes only just now served Aslan:

It's unclear why Aslan even bothered to delete the tweet, other than perhaps a kneejerk reaction upon being served. There's nothing defamatory at all in what he said. The lawsuit itself is ridiculous. Beyond Aslan, there are a bunch of other plaintiffs who merely stated various opinions about Sandmann (mostly, rather than the supposed "John Does"). Aslan's co-defendants include Elizabeth Warren, who tweeted "Omaha elder and Vietnam War veteran Nathan Phillips endured hateful taunts with dignity and strength, then urged us all to do better." What's defamatory about that? Barnes' suit claims that she "omitted the true facts." But that's not how defamation works. Other defendants include NY Times reporter Maggie Haberman, ABC News commentator Matthew Dowd, Mother Jones Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery, historian Kevin Kruse and more. None of what any of them said was defamatory.

And, again, the entire lawsuit is completely laughable, and it's not even clear who Barnes' clients really are. Yet, when PJ Media (and Barnes) framed it in a way that suggested to people that the lawsuit against Aslan (who supposedly is going to "face the music") was on behalf of Sandmann, the Rorschach test continued, with tons and tons of Sandmann's supporters cheering on a nonsense lawsuit. Indeed, some of the commentators even appear to believe that the CNN settlement was done by Barnes:

It goes on like that for a lot longer, but you get the idea. Notice that basically all of them are doing exactly what Barnes and Sandmann/Wood/McMurtry are suing over: commenting enthusiastically about a story where they only know a small piece of the details, and possibly have the large crux of the situation wrong. Particularly silly is that many of those commenters egging on a completely bogus attack on free speech pretend to be "free speech supporters."

And, of course, then Sandmann's actual lawyer Lin Wood had to go on Twitter and demand that Barnes cease and "correct his prior false statements." It includes what appears to be a threat to take legal action:

Again, here's the text if you can't view the screenshot:

Nicholas Sandmann has many legitimate defamation cases remaining for resolution through litigation. @ToddMcMurtry & I prefer to focus on those matters & not be forced to take legal action against another lawyer but Robert E. Barnes crosses line with his claims about Nicholas.

Barnes has been previously warned to stop publicly suggesting or stating that he represents Nicholas. In response, Barnes “blocked” @ToddMcMurtry & me on Twitter. Barnes apparently cannot control his desire to garner publicity by falsely using Nicholas’ name.

For those who can access @Barnes_Law & support his legal efforts for others, please remind him that he cannot “block” a formal demand letter, a civil complaint, or an ethics complaint. I hope he finally gets the message.

If Barnes does not cease publishing & then correct his prior false statements, Nicholas’ attorneys are fully prepared to take legal action against him. So Barnes can take the easy way out or he will get out the hard way - we will sue him. His choice.

Later, Wood (hilariously) claimed that Barnes is "on the right side of CovCath issue." Which, uh, no.

But, once again, this is all a form of a Rorschach test, and everyone seems to view the story through their own particular prism -- as did all of the initial commenters that Wood/Sandmann/Barnes/whoever are suing. And that's why all of those lawsuits are such bullshit. People reacting to news is not defamation. People not having the full context is not defamation. People expressing their opinion, or explaining how they view things, is not defamation. And the people who have responded to all of the news this week are doing exactly the same thing they seem to think others should be sued over.

So, maybe, just maybe, the best thing here would be stop filing so many bullshit defamation lawsuits, and recognize that free speech sometimes includes speech we don't like, and that includes people not fully understanding the context. But, of course, that's not going to happen. Indeed, Sandmann's other lawyer, Todd McMurtry has instead promised to get back to suing more people:

Sigh.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, cch, covington catholic high school, defamation, elizabeth warren, free speech, l. lin wood, lin wood, nathan phillips, nick sandmann, opinions, resa aslan, robert barnes, rorschach test, todd mcmurtry
Companies: cnn, nbc, washington post

Catholic School Teen's Lawyers File $250M Defamation Suit Against The Washington Post; Fail To List Any Actual Defamation

from the pro-se-but-for-retained-legal-representation dept

Lawsuits were threatened after students from a Kentucky Catholic school were portrayed as engaging in racist behavior during an anti-abortion march at the nation's capital. An edited video swiftly circulated the internet, showing student Nick Sandmann facing off with a Native American protester while wearing a seemingly-smug file on his face and a Make America Great Again hat on his head.

More footage of the incident appeared later providing a bit more context, making the obvious racism seem less obvious. But the Twitter ship had sailed and there was little hope of turning it around. Lessons could have been learned from rushing to judgment, but Nick Sandmann and his family's lawyers have decided this lessons should be taught via libel lawsuits. They've got an uphill battle as nearly everything said about Sandmann and the incident was protected opinion, but a lack of credible arguments has never prevented lawsuits from being filed.

As Buzzfeed reports, one of the first targets is the Washington Post. Sandmann's complaint [PDF], composed by attorneys Lin Wood and Todd McMurtry, is about half op-ed, half federal complaint. Here's the lead off:

The Post is a major American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. which is credited with inventing the term "McCarthyism" in an editorial cartoon published in 1950. Depicting buckets of tar, the cartoon made fun of then United States Senator Joseph McCarthy's "tarring" tactics of engaging in smear campaigns and character assassination against citizens whose political views made them targets of his accusations.

In a span of three (3) days in January of this year commencing on January 19, the Post engaged in a modern-day form of McCarthyism by competing with CNN and NBC, among others, to claim leadership of a mainstream and social media mob of bullies which attacked, vilified, and threatened Nicholas Sandmann (“Nicholas”), an innocent secondary school child.

The Post wrongfully targeted and bullied Nicholas because he was the white, Catholic student wearing a red “Make America Great Again” souvenir cap on a school field trip to the January 18 March for Life in Washington, D.C. when he was unexpectedly and suddenly confronted by Nathan Phillips (“Phillips”), a known Native American activist, who beat a drum and sang loudly within inches of his face (“the January 18 incident”)

Moving along…

The Post ignored basic journalist standards because it wanted to advance its well-known and easily documented, biased agenda against President Donald J. Trump (“the President”) by impugning individuals perceived to be supporters of the President.

[Scrolls to the bottom of the filing to make sure it wasn't composed by Larry Klayman...]

In this country, our society is dedicated to the protection of children regardless of the color of their skin, their religious beliefs, or the cap they wear.

But the Post did not care about protecting Nicholas. To the contrary, the Post raced with a reckless disregard of the facts and truth because in this day and time there is a premium for being the first and loudest media bully.

The Post wanted to lead the charge against this child because he was a pawn in its political war against its political adversary – a war so disconnected and beyond the comprehension of Nicholas that it might as well have been science fiction.

Let's just try to find the factual allegations. It's established that Sandmann's lawyers wish to offer their opinion that the Washington Post is a bully that targeted Nick Sandmann because he supported a president the Post dislikes. But that's all that's been established -- despite the use of the term "defamation" here and there -- by the time the lawsuit drops its first mention of damages. Some weird eye-for-an-eye demand is being made by Sandmann's attorneys.

In order to fully compensate Nicholas for his damages and to punish, deter, and teach the Post a lesson it will never forget, this action seeks money damages in excess of Two Hundred and Fifty Million Dollars ($250,000,000.00) – the amount Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, paid in cash for the Post when his company, Nash Holdings, purchased the newspaper in 2013.

Eight pages in, we finally have an allegation that doesn't sound like an angry blog post:

On January 19, 20 and 21, the Post ignored the truth and falsely accused Nicholas of, among other things, “accost[ing]” Phillips by “suddenly swarm[ing]” him in a “threaten[ing]” and “physically intimidat[ing]” manner as Phillips “and other activists were wrapping up the march and preparing to leave,” “block[ing]” Phillips path, refusing to allow Phillips “to retreat,” “taunting the dispersing indigenous crowd,” chanting “build that wall,” “Trump2020,” or “go back to Africa,” and otherwise engaging in racist and improper conduct which ended only “when Phillips and other activists walked away.”

Seems straightforward except for a number of inconvenient facts. As the lawsuit admits, these reports were based on an edited video that led many, many people to the same conclusions. The lawsuit claims the Post acted carelessly by not acting on information it became aware of four days after it published its first article.

By January 23, the Post conceded that the @2020fight account that was largely responsible for the edited video going viral on social media may have been purchased from Shoutcart.com for that specific purpose.

With no investigation into the @2020fight account, the Post actively, negligently, and recklessly participated in making the 2020fight Video go viral on social media when on January 19 at 9:21 a.m., Post reporter Joe Heim re-posted the 2020fight Video.

The lawsuit says the Post recklessly published a piece on the incident on January 19th, four hours after the edited video went viral. Somehow this is defamatory because the Post "recklessly" did not act on information it didn't have (the extended video posted a day later) prior to publishing this article. Then the lawsuit wanders off to discuss the investigation of the incident by a firm hired by the Catholic school Sandmann attends, as though this should have some bearing on an article published prior to an investigation the Washington Post wasn't involved with.

When it comes to narrow down the alleged defamation, the lawsuit somehow gets even worse. It spends four paragraphs enumerating "false and defamatory gists" -- a legal concept usually offered as a defense, rather than an accusation. Then it accuses the Washington Post of defaming Sandmann by publishing statements made by other people to the Post reporter.

In its First Article, the Post published or republished the following false and defamatory statements:

(a) The headline “‘It was getting ugly’: Native American drummer speaks on the MAGA-hat wearing teens who surrounded him.”

(b) “In an interview Saturday, Phillips, 64, said he felt threatened by the teens and that they suddenly swarmed around him as he and other activists were wrapping up the march and preparing to leave.”

(c) “Phillips, who was singing the American Indian Movement song of unity that serves as a ceremony to send the spirits home, said he noticed tensions beginning to escalate when the teens and other apparent participants from the nearby March for Life rally began taunting the dispersing indigenous crowd.”

(d) “A few people in the March for Life crowd began to chant ‘Build that wall, build that wall,’ he said.”

(e) “‘It was getting ugly, and I was thinking: ‘I’ve got to find myself an exit out of this situation and finish my song at the Lincoln Memorial,’ Phillips recalled. ‘I started going that way, and that guy in the hat stood in my way and we were at an impasse. He just blocked my way and wouldn’t allow me to retreat.’”

(f) “‘It clearly demonstrates the validity of our concerns about the marginalization and disrespect of Indigenous peoples, and it shows that traditional knowledge is being ignored by those who should listen most closely,’ Darren Thompson, an organizer for the [Indigenous Peoples Movement], said in the statement.

(g) “Chase Iron Eyes, an attorney with the Lakota People Law Project, said the incident lasted about 10 minutes and ended when Phillips and other activists walked away.”

(h) “‘It was an aggressive display of physicality. They were rambunctious and trying to instigate a conflict,’ he said. ‘We were wondering where their chaperones were. [Phillips] was really trying to defuse the situation.’”

(i) “Phillips, an Omaha tribe elder who also fought in the Vietnam war, has encountered anti-Native American sentiments before . . . .”

From there, it discusses about a second article by the Washington Post, alleging it was somehow defamatory for the Post to publish a statement from the Covington Diocese decrying the teen's behavior. It also says a third article from the Post was defamatory -- again listing only things other people said to the Post's reporter. Then there's more stuff about "defamatory gists." And on it goes for several more pages, highlighting each Post article about the subject while failing to point out any defamatory statements actually made by the Washington Post.

This is a garbage lawsuit. It makes zero credible defamation accusations, spending its entirety either stating its own opinions about the paper or attempting to hold it legally responsible for statements made by other people. It's not winnable. Its sole purpose appears to be to exist loudly, hoping to create a deterrent effect simply by banging about the place self-importantly. It will go nowhere, but it will do so as noisily as possible. If this is all Sandmann's parents wanted from their legal representation, they should have accepted the pro bono offers being made, rather than sink money into this ostentatious waste of time.

Filed Under: defamation, free speech, jeff bezos, lin wood, nick sandmann, protest, todd mcmurty
Companies: washington post