North Carolina’s Republican candidate for governor Mark Robinson has filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit against CNN, claiming the network’s report that he called himself a “black Nazi” and made inflammatory comments on a pornography website over a decade ago to be “recklessly false,” Reuters reports.
The lawsuit accuses CNN of publishing unverified information, calling the September report a “malicious hit job” aimed at sabotaging his campaign ahead of the November 5 election against Democrat Josh Stein. The report alleged that Robinson made offensive comments under the username “minisoldr,” including pro-slavery statements, which he denies.
Robinson, the state’s lieutenant governor, argues that CNN published the article despite doubts about its accuracy and based it on unverifiable information allegedly sourced from the dark web. CNN has not commented on the lawsuit.
