In a clip of an interview set to air on Sunday’s 10 p.m. ET broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Life, Liberty & Levin,” L. Lin Wood, the lawyer for Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann, said CNN was likely to be hit with a massive lawsuit worth more than $250 million over alleged “vicious” and “direct attacks” in the near future.
“CNN was probably more vicious in its direct attacks on Nicholas than The Washington Post,” Wood said. “And CNN goes into millions of individuals’ homes. It’s broadcast into their homes. They really went after Nicholas with the idea that he was part of a mob that was attacking the Black Hebrew Israelites, yelling racist slurs at the Black Hebrew Israelites — totally false, saying things like Nicholas was part of a group that was threatening the Black Hebrew Israelites, that they thought there was going to be a lynching. Now you’ve seen the tape. If you took the time to look at what was said that day, Nicholas Sandmann did absolutely nothing wrong. He was as I said to other the only adult in the room.”
“But you had a situation where CNN couldn’t resist the idea that here’s a young boy with a ‘Make America Great Again’ cap on,” he continued. “So they go after him. They were after him I said when they woke up on Saturday morning and started throwing punches. The CNN folks were online on Twitter at 7 a.m. retweeting the little one-minute propaganda piece that had been put out by @2020fight. We’ll find out who that person or entity was behind that eventually. But they’re out there right away going after this young boy, and they maintain it for at least two days. Why didn’t they stop and just take an hour and look through the internet and find the truth and then report it? Maybe do that before you report the lies. They were vicious. It was false. CNN will be sued next week. The dollar figure in the CNN case may be higher than it was in The Washington Post [case].”
Wood said the suit would probably come on Monday, or Tuesday at the latest. He went on to suggest a dollar amount for that suit, which would be higher than the one he currently has against The Washington Post.
“I expect because of the way they went after Nicolas so viciously, the claim for his reputational damage will be higher than it was for The Washington Post,” Wood added. “The Post was $50 million for the reputational damage. We can discuss why that figure. Two-hundred-million dollars in punitive damages. Punitive damages are designed to punish and to deter. Don’t ever do this again. I would think the punitive damage award against CNN that we’ll seek will be at least the same $200 million as it was against The Washington Post. But the compensatory damage to Nicholas’s reputation, that number I expect will be higher.”
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