North Carolina Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson sued CNN on Tuesday over its recent report that he made explicit racial and sexual posts on a pornography website鈥檚 message board, calling the reporting reckless and defamatory.
The lawsuit, filed in Wake County Superior Court, comes less than four weeks after a report that led many fellow GOP elected officials and candidates, including presidential nominee Donald Trump, to distance themselves from Robinson's gubernatorial campaign.
Robinson, who announced the lawsuit at a news conference in Raleigh with a Virginia-based attorney, has denied authoring the messages.
CNN 鈥渃hose to publish despite knowing or recklessly disregarding that Lt. Gov. Robinson鈥檚 data 鈥 including his name, date of birth, passwords, and the email address supposedly associated with the NudeAfrica account 鈥 were previously compromised by multiple data breaches,鈥 the lawsuit states, referencing the website.
Robinson, who would be the state鈥檚 first Black governor if elected, called the report a 鈥渉igh-tech lynching鈥 on a candidate "who has been targeted from Day 1 by folks who disagree with me politically and want to see me destroyed.鈥
CNN declined to comment Tuesday, spokesperson Emily Kuhn said in an email.
The CNN report, which first aired Sept. 19, said Robinson left statements over a decade ago on the message board in which, in part, he referred to himself as a 鈥渂lack NAZI,鈥 said he enjoyed transgender pornography, said he preferred Hitler to then-president Barack Obama, and slammed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as 鈥渨orse than a maggot.鈥
The network report said it matched details of the account on the message board to other online accounts held by Robinson by comparing usernames, a known email address and his full name. CNN reported that details discussed by the account holder matched Robinson鈥檚 age, length of marriage and other biographical information. CNN also said it compared figures of speech that came up frequently in his public Twitter profile that appeared in discussions by the account on the pornographic website.
Polls at the time of the CNN report already showed Democratic rival Josh Stein, the sitting attorney general, with a lead over Robinson. Early in-person voting begins Thursday statewide, and over 57,000 completed absentee ballots have been received so far.
Robinson also in the same lawsuit sued a Greensboro punk rock band singer who alleged in a music video and and in an interview that Robinson, in the 1990s and early 2000s, frequented a porn shop the singer once worked at and purchased videos. Louis Love Money, the other named defendant, released the video and spoke with other media outlets before the CNN report.
Robinson denies the allegation in the lawsuit, which reads, 鈥淟t. Gov. Robinson was not spending hours at the video store, five nights a week. He was not renting or previewing videos, and he did not purchase 鈥榖ootleg鈥 or other videos from Defendant Money.鈥
Money said in a phone interview Tuesday that he stands by his statements and the music video's content as truthful: 鈥淢y story hasn't changed.鈥
The lawsuit, which seeks at least US$50 million in damages, says the effort against Robinson 鈥渁ppears to be a coordinated attack aimed at derailing his campaign for governor.鈥 It provides no evidence that the network or Money schemed with outside groups to create what Robinsons alleges are false statements.
Robinson鈥檚 lawyer, Jesse Binnall, said that he expects to find more 鈥渂ad actors,鈥 and that entities, which he did not identify, have stonewalled his firm's efforts to collect information.
鈥淲e 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,鈥 said Binnall, whose clients have included Trump and his campaign.
In North Carolina courts, a public official claiming defamation generally must show a defendant knew a statement was false or recklessly disregarded its untruthfulness.
Most of the top staff running Robinson鈥檚 campaign and his lieutenant governor鈥檚 office quit following the CNN report, and the Republican Governors Association, which had already spent millions of dollars in advertising backing Robinson, stopped supporting his bid. And Democrats from presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris to downballot state candidates began running ads linking their opponents to Robinson.
Robinson's campaign isn't running TV commercials now. He said that 鈥渨e鈥檝e chosen to go in a different direction鈥 and focus on in-person campaign stops.
Robinson already had a history of inflammatory comments about topics like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights that Stein and his allies have emphasized in opposing him on TV commercials and online.
Stein spokesperson Morgan Hopkins said Tuesday in a statement that 鈥渆ven before the CNN report, North Carolinians have known for a long time that Mark Robinson is completely unfit to be Governor."
Hurricane Helene and its aftermath took the CNN report off the front pages. Robinson worked for several days with a central North Carolina sheriff collecting relief supplies and criticized Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper 鈥 barred by term limits from seeking re-election 鈥 for state government's response in the initial stages of relief.
Trump endorsed Robinson before the March gubernatorial primary, calling him 鈥淢artin Luther King on steroids鈥 for his speaking ability. Robinson had been a frequent presence at Trump鈥檚 North Carolina campaign stops, but he hasn鈥檛 participated in such an event since the CNN report.
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