If Nick Sandmann can sue and successfully win millions of dollars in defamation against CNN, why can’t Mike Flynn’s brother and sister in-law do the same? After CNN tried to link Flynn to QAnon and the Jan 6 riots, Flynn’s brother Jack, and his wife are suing CNN for $75 million in defamation.
The brother and sister-in-law of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn are suing CNN over a report that they say portrays them as adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory.
Jack and Leslie Flynn point to a Feb. 4 report from CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan they claim portrays them as QAnon supporters. They are seeking $75 million in damages over the reporting they allege was false and defamatory.
The CNN segment, which includes a short video clip Michael Flynn posted on Twitter of the extended Flynn family’s July 4, 2020 celebrations, purports to be an in-depth look at QAnon followers. Flynn has since been banned from Twitter.
The Flynns allege the clip of the Flynn’s Fourth of July celebrations falsely portrayed them as QAnon followers, which “exposed Plaintiffs to public scorn, ridicule and contempt, and lowered their esteem in the community, causing insult, embarrassment, humiliation and substantial injury to Plaintiffs’ reputations.”
They further allege CNN’s depictions of them constitute defamation per se since a later CNN report on QAnon from Anderson Cooper “repeated that QAnon espoused ideas that were based on ‘anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic tropes that have been used [by] … the Nazis.’”
The Flynns claim in the lawsuit they are both private citizens. Under defamation law, private citizens have a higher expectation of privacy than public figures, so it is easier for them to collect damages. CNN faced a similar lawsuit in 2019, when high school student Nicholas Sandmann filed a suit after the network aired misleadingly-edited footage purporting to show Sandmann harassing a liberal activist.