OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
6:02 PM – Tuesday, October 15, 2024
Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson of North Carolina, who is vying to become the state’s next governor, filed a lawsuit against CNN on Tuesday, claiming that their reporting was defamatory and reckless following claims that he posted “racist and sexual comments” on a pornography website’s bulletin board.
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Less than four weeks after the alleged claims prompted numerous Republican elected leaders and candidates to disassociate themselves from Robinson’s (R-N.C.) gubernatorial campaign, the complaint was filed in Wake County Superior Court.
Robinson has adamantly denied posting the comments. He made the announcement of the lawsuit during a news conference in Raleigh with a lawyer from Virginia.
“CNN chose to publish despite knowing or recklessly disregarding that Lt. Gov. Robinson’s data — including his name, date of birth, passwords, and the email address supposedly associated with the NudeAfrica account — were previously compromised by multiple data breaches,” the lawsuit states.
Robinson labeled the report a “high-tech lynching” on a Black GOP candidate “who has been targeted from Day 1 by folks who disagree with me politically and want to see me destroyed.”
According to the CNN report, which was published on September 19th, Robinson allegedly posted racist and pro-transgender comments on a porn website’s message board more than ten years ago. The account that CNN claims belonged to Robinson disparaged Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as “worse than a maggot,” referred to himself a “black NAZI,” expressed a preference for Hitler over then-President Barack Obama, and said they enjoyed transgender pornography.
The network claimed that by comparing usernames, a known email address, and Robinson’s complete full name, it was able to link information about the message board account to other internet identities that he had. CNN alleged that the account holder’s information matched Robinson’s age, marital status, and other personal facts.
“The lawsuit, which seeks at least $50 million in damages, says the effort against Robinson ‘appears to be a coordinated attack aimed at derailing his campaign for governor,’” AP News reported.
Meanwhile, Robinson’s attorney, Jesse Binnall, stated that he anticipates discovering even more “bad actors” and that certain unnamed organizations have obstructed his legal firm’s information gathering efforts.
“We will use every tool at our disposal now that a lawsuit has been filed, including the subpoena power, in order to continue pursuing the facts,” said Binnall.
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