Robinson, the state’s lieutenant governor, sued the network and a musician for $50 million.
North Carolina Lt. Gov Mark Robinson on Tuesday sued CNN for $50 million over an article the network published last month alleging he made comments on a pornography web forum years ago.
Robinson, a Republican who is running for governor, filed a defamation lawsuit on Tuesday against CNN and a North Carolina musician, Louis Love Money, who alleged he went to pornography stores. Robinson has denied both authoring the messages and Money’s claims.
“CNN and Louis Love Money are responsible for a new low in digital lynching,” the lawsuit states. “In a malicious hit job so well timed as to be uncanny, they have published disgusting lies about Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson in what appears to be a coordinated attack aimed at derailing his campaign for governor, and has already inflicted immeasurable harm to his family, his reputation, and his good name.
“This lawsuit, while utterly insufficient to right this wrong, shall serve as a small measure of accountability.”
The lawsuit, filed in Wake County Superior Court, follows an article published four weeks earlier that led many fellow GOP elected officials and candidates, including former President Donald Trump, to distance themselves from Robinson’s gubernatorial campaign.
CNN, his lawsuit said, “chose to publish despite knowing or recklessly disregarding that Lt. Gov. Robinson’s data—including his name, date of birth, passwords, and the email address supposedly associated“ with an account on the pornographic web forum—”were previously compromised by multiple data breaches.”
CNN declined to comment, network spokeswoman Emily Kuhn said in an email Tuesday.
“When times of trouble come in this thing we call politics, it separates the strong folks from the weak,” Robinson said at a press event on Tuesday. “The weak will turn and run, and the strong will stand and fight—and that’s what we’re doing here today. We’re standing and fighting regardless of who turned and ran away from us, regardless of who doesn’t believe us.”
His lawsuit also named Money, a punk rock band singer in Greensboro who alleged in a music video and interview that Robinson frequently visited a pornographic store where the singer previously worked and bought videos in the 1990s and early 2000s.
The lawsuit said Robinson wasn’t “spending hours at the video store, five nights a week,” referencing claims made by Money. “He was not renting or previewing videos, and he did not purchase ‘bootleg’ or other videos from Defendant Money,” it added.
In the wake of the CNN article, some of Robinson’s top campaign staff and members of the lieutenant governor’s office have stepped down. The Republican Governors Association also said it stopped supporting his gubernatorial campaign.
Before CNN’s report, Robinson also frequently appeared at Trump’s campaign stops in North Carolina but hasn’t partaken in an event since the article was published.
In the article, CNN alleged that Robinson made comments on the forum, including one instance where he described himself as a “black Nazi” and would purchase slaves if the practice of slavery returned as well as allegedly making various lewd comments between 2008 and 2012.
CNN said it linked the comments to Robinson by matching his email address and username to other online accounts that he had allegedly used. Meanwhile, the account “minisoldr” had posted comments on the forum that corresponded with Robinson’s biographical details, including his marriage and age, according to CNN.
In the lawsuit, Robison denied making the comments on the website, saying that CNN made “false statements” against him.
“These falsely attributed statements include several lewd, sex-obsessed, racist, and outrageous statements including the comment from the title of the article, ‘I am a Black NAZI,’” his lawsuit said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.