James O'Keefe's suit against CNN can go forward after appeals court rules against network

After three years, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Georgia has delivered a victory in a case brought forth by James O’Keefe, founder of O’Keefe Media Group, and his former group Project Veritas, against CNN for defamation.

Circuit Judge Elizabeth Branch wrote in an opinion for the court that on February 11, 2021, the Project Veritas account on then-Twitter was suspended. CNN’s Ana Cabrera claimed on February 15 that the account had been banned for "promoting misinformation," while Project Veritas said that it was because it had violated Twitter’s "publication of private information," or "doxxing" policy.

"When CNN refused to issue a retraction, Veritas sued for defamation. The district court granted CNN’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, finding that Cabrera’s statements were substantially true and thus not actionable under applicable New York defamation law. Veritas appealed," Branch wrote.  

O’Keefe said that the post in question showed video of a Project Veritas journalist going to the home of a Facebook vice president and that there were details in the video that indicated where the person lived. O'Keefe said the ban was because Project Veritas had "failed to blur the number on his lamp post."

"But even CNN goes to people's homes and does local door stops, local news reporters do that all the time, and often they don't blur the number on the lamp post or the number on the house," O’Keefe noted, showing a clip of CNN’s Drew Griffin going to a Florida trailer park and failing to blur the address of a woman interviewed.

In CNN’s motion to dismiss, they wrote that "To the average viewer, there is no material difference from a reputational standpoint between being banned for "misinformation" and being banned for posting prohibited information (or threatening to share it.)" A federal judge sided with CNN and dismissed the case in 2022, with the case being appealed to the 11th Circuit.

The 11th Circuit wrote that "we conclude that Cabrera’s February 15 statements are actionable because they were not substantially true" and "Veritas plausibly alleged that Cabrera’s statements were published with actual malice under the First Amendment."

The court later stated, "We conclude that the district court misapplied New York law and improperly weighed reputational harm when it should have compared the facts and meaning of the defamatory statements with the purported truth.

In a concurring opinion, Circuit Judge Ed Carnes wrote, "If you stay on the bench long enough, you see a lot of things. Still, I never thought I’d see a major news organization downplaying the importance of telling the truth in its broadcasts. But that is what CNN has done in this case."

"Through its lawyers, CNN has urged this Court to adopt the position that under the law it is no worse for a news organization to spread or promote misinformation than it is to truthfully disclose a person’s address in a broadcast."

O’Keefe continued, "Project Veritas fired me, in part, at least from what they’ve stated, because I had spent too much money on lawyers. I made difficult decisions in courts of law. I traveled around the country, taking all types of automobiles and planes and trains in order to meet with donors to raise the hundreds of thousands, the millions of dollars needed to make those difficult decisions."

"Project Veritas Corporation fires me, the chairman, the CEO and founder, in part for doing the very thing that Project Veritas is now taking a victory lap over. You can't make this stuff up."

O’Keefe added that Project Veritas is still suing him, "suggesting that it was wrong for me to do the things that they are now taking a victory lap over me doing, and we intend to go to jury verdict in that lawsuit." He added that depositions are ongoing in that case. 

The district court’s decision has been reversed and the CNN defamation case was remanded for further proceedings.