Judge throws out lawsuit Michael Flynn's family members brought against CNN over 'QAnon followers' report

Source: Law & Crime

Apr 26th, 2024, 12:54 pm


The brother and sister-in-law of former Trump national security adviser and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn lost out in their attempt to sue CNN over a 2021 segment on QAnon, a report that showed a video of several Flynn family members saying the “Where we go one, we go all” slogan known to be associated with the conspiracy theory and its adherents.

Jack and Leslie Flynn’s argument that the CNN segment “falsely painted them as ‘QAnon followers'” did not fare well before U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, who dismissed the lawsuit Wednesday, saying, “This case is not a tossup.” Much of the opinion pointed out that QAnon movement is an “amorphous, undefined concept,” such that calling someone a “QAnon follower,” which the judge said CNN didn’t explicitly do here, falls into the realm on non-actionable opinion, like calling someone a fascist.

“The Flynns have not carried their burden to provide evidence showing that the meaning of ‘QAnon follower’ is any less ‘debatable, loose and varying,’ so the same conclusion follows. QAnon has, in many ways, taken on a life of its own, becoming a sort of ‘undefined slogan[] that [is] part of the conventional give-and-take in our economic and political controversies—like … ‘fascist,'” the judge wrote. “No one knows what it means, but it’s provocative. That’s opinion.”

The judge noted that the “core public concern” of CNN’s report was exploring the nexus between powerful and QAnon — that is, “whether those in power were involved” with the conspiracy theory “and to what extent.” “The clip of Michael Flynn—President Trump’s first National Security Advisor—saying a phrase associated with QAnon certainly addresses that concern, even if the Flynns think it was totally innocent,” Subramanian wrote.

Read more: https://lawandcrime.com/lawsuit/this-case-is-not-a-tossup-judge-throws-out-lawsuit-michael-flynns-family-members-brought-against-cnn-over-qanon-followers-report/