On Tuesday evening, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin hired Hulk Hogan’s lawyers and sued the New York Times for defamation for falsely accusing her in a June 14 editorial of inciting Jared Lee Loughner to shoot Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ). The Times’ editorial was published on the day that James Hodgkinson shot House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) while he was practicing for the Congressional Baseball Game with his GOP teammates.
“Today, Sarah Palin took a stand against The New York Times Company by filing a lawsuit which seeks to hold The Times accountable for stating that Governor Palin is part of a ‘sickeningly familiar pattern’ of politically motivated violence and that she incited the horrific 2011 shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords, a tragedy where the gunman seriously wounded numerous people and killed 6, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl,” Palin’s lawyers—Ken Turkel, Shane Vogt, and S. Preston Ricardo—said in a statement.
The complaint, filed in Manhattan federal court in the Southern District of New York, states that “at the time of publication, The Times knew and had published pieces acknowledging that there was no connection between Mrs. Palin and Loughner’s 2011 shooting.”
“In doing so, The Times violated the law and its own policies,” it reads.
Messrs. Turkel, Vogt, and Ricardo said Palin “seeks to hold The Times to its November 13, 2016, pledge [‘to rededicate itself to reporting facts honestly and holding power to account’], and to face both journalistic and financial accountability for the false statements that it published about Mrs. Palin.”
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