Covington Catholic Student Files Massive Lawsuit Against NBC, MSNBC

Lawyers representing Covington Catholic high school student Nicholas Sandmann have filed a $275 million lawsuit against NBCUniversal.

Sandmann became the main focus of an original video clip in January which showed an alleged confrontation between Covington students and a Native-American man.

He swiftly became a target of the media by standing in front of Nathan Phillips who had walked towards him beating a drum. Sandmann’s ‘crime’ was that he did so while wearing a MAGA hat. He was accused of confronting Phillips. He was accused of being racist.

The out-of-context video was debunked when subsequent videos from different angles and longer time periods thoroughly exonerated the students from the media charges that were leveled against them.

Now, NBC and MSNBC are being called out for their false reporting.

Anti-Trump Agenda

“NBCUniversal created a false narrative by portraying the ‘confrontation’ as a ‘hate crime’ committed by Nicholas,” the lawsuit alleges.

“Nicholas was an easy target for NBCUniversal to advance its anti-Trump agenda because he was a 16-year-old white, Catholic student who had attended the Right to Life March that day and was wearing a MAGA cap at the time of the incident,” the suit contends.

The filing notes that multiple headlines on NBC and MSNBC were framed as a means to portray Sandmann as guilty of something he hadn’t done, including a pair which read: ‘Nathan Phillips, Native American man harassed by high schoolers, tells his story,’ and ‘Video of teens taunting man at Indigenous Peoples March sparks outrage.’

Holding the Fake News Media Accountable

The $275 million lawsuit is the latest in a string of suits by Sandmann’s lawyers attempting to hold the ‘fake news’ media’s feet to the fire.

The team slapped the Washington Post with a $250 million lawsuit in February and warned that the teen’s battle against smears perpetrated by the media “is only the beginning.”

The following month, CNN was also slapped with a suit for $275 million. Sandmann’s lawyers accused CNN of acting worse than the Post.

“CNN was probably more vicious in its direct attacks on Nicholas than The Washington Post. And CNN goes into millions of individuals’ homes,” Georgia attorney L. Lin Wood said.

NBCUniversal’s reach is similar, and likely why they too were sued for a larger amount.

Sandmann’s legal team has also suggested further lawsuits could be forthcoming, hinting that The New York Times, along with celebrities such as Jim Carrey, Alyssa Milano and Bill Maher, as well as politicians like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), could become targets.

“We don’t want this to happen again. We want to teach people a lesson,” lawyer Todd McMurtry said. “There was a rush by the media to believe that it wanted to believe versus what actually happened.”

Rusty Weiss has been covering politics for over 15 years. His writings have appeared in the Daily Caller, Fox... More about Rusty Weiss

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