Here’s why the judge dismissed Sarah Palin’s suit against the paper. She claimed a false statement linked her rhetoric to the assassination attempt on Gabby Giffords.
Sarah Palin’s libel lawsuit against the New York Times was thrown out on Monday by a federal judge, in a case brought over an error the paper published in a 2017 editorial falsely linking her to an assassination attempt on a Democratic representative years earlier. Judge Jed Rakoff ruled to officially throw out the complaint after the jury issues a verdict, so that their decision may be considered on a likely appeal by Palin’s lawyers. This ruling puts Judge Rakoff pretty much where he was in 2017, when he tossed the Palin case on the motion to dismiss. He argued that this was a case of negligent journalism, not the assertion of knowing falsehood/reckless disregard that a public figure must prove.
