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Jury rejects Sarah Palin's defamation lawsuit against New York Times

Sarah Palin NYT lawsuit
Posted at 1:58 PM, Feb 15, 2022
and last updated 2022-02-15 14:58:53-05

A jury has ruled against Sarah Palin in her defamation lawsuit against The New York Times.

A jury in the New York trial on Tuesday rejected the Republican's claim that the newspaper maliciously damaged her reputation with an editorial linking her campaign rhetoric to the mass shooting that injured former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

The Times acknowledged that the 2017 editorial had wrongly suggested Palin's political action committee helped inspire a 2011 Arizona shooting that killed six, but the paper said the mistake wasn't intentional.

Palin, a former vice presidential candidate, had sought damages for what she says was trauma and embarrassment.

The ruling came a day after U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said he would rule against the case after the jury returned a verdict, making an appeal a near certainty.

The trial was briefly delayed earlier this year after Palin tested positive for COVID-19. The judge noted that Palin had not been vaccinated against the virus in announcing the trial's delay.