North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s defamation lawsuit against CNN — over a report by the network that alleged Robinson made racist and lewd comments on a pornagraphic website — is unlikely to offer voters many new insights before the November election, former prosecutors and other legal professionals tell WRAL News. And it could be more than a month before the case advances, if a judge allows it to go forward at all.

CNN reported on Sept. 19 that Robinson, using an alias, referred to himself as a “Black Nazi,” called for the reinstatement of slavery and described pornographic consumption habits in the comments section of a website called Nude Africa more than a decade ago, before he entered politics.

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Robinson has denied allegations in the CNN report and on Tuesday filed suit against the network in Wake County Superior Court, saying it reported false statements about him, relied on suspect data from shady websites and ignored Robinson’s denials of allegations prior to publication. He’s asking for at least $50 million in damages, saying his reputation was damaged and that he has suffered from mental anguish since the report came out.

CNN has declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Lawyers and legal analysts say the timing of Robinson’s lawsuit makes it highly unlikely that the lawsuit will shake loose any new details of CNN’s reporting or of Robinson’s online activities before the Nov. 5 election.

Defendants usually get 30 days to respond to a legal complaint after they’ve been served. Early voting started Thursday and Robinson filed his lawsuit 20 days before Election Day. As of Wednesday, at least one defendant said he hadn’t been served.

In some defamation lawsuits, previously secret information emerges that is of public interest. That can happen at trial, or during the evidence-gathering discovery process before a trial.

Some legal analysts, however, don’t believe the case will get that far.

“I didn't see anything in the complaint that suggested to me this case is likely to be successful,” said Chris Mattei, a defamation attorney who successfully sued Infowars founder Alex Jones for false reporting about the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

Discovery is ‘very searching’

Under the discovery process, the parties can force each other to exchange information relevant to the case. For example, Robinson could seek documents related to CNN’s reporting, and the network could seek data existing on Robinson’s computers.

The parties can also collect depositions, or interviews with people involved in the case. Depositions are highly-detailed, sworn testimony in which people involved in a lawsuit can be grilled by the other side before the trial.

Unlike criminal trials, in which people have the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, no such right exists in civil cases. So Robinson’s attorneys could seek to force CNN reporters to testify under oath about political opinions or internal conversations they had about Robinson. And CNN’s attorneys could seek to force Robinson to testify under oath about his internet habits, allegations about purchases at adult entertainment stores, and other information that might be pertinent to the lawsuit.

“The discovery process in a libel case is tremendously invasive of a plaintiff,” said Amanda Martin, an attorney at Duke Law School’s First Amendment Clinic. The plaintiff in a lawsuit is the one who filed it — in this case, Robinson.

“It is very, very searching” in nature, Martin said, adding: “You could envision a lot of questions that CNN would be asking to ascertain the character and nature of Mark Robinson, because that is what is relevant to assess potential injury to reputation.”

When WRAL asked Josh Stein, Robinson’s Democratic opponent in the gubernatorial race, to comment on Robinson's legal threats against CNN, Stein quipped that discovery could be “very interesting.”

Discovery items exchanged between parties in a lawsuit aren't usually filed for the public to view. However, some details can become public if the judge doesn’t place a protective order on them or if the parties take a dispute over discovery matters to court.

Typically, Martin said, “things learned by either side in a case come out when the case goes to trial, or before that.”

Proving defamation

Defamation is significantly harder for public figures such as politicians to win a case than it is for private citizens. In part that’s to allow for more open discussion of political leaders and other powerful people, without as much fear of reprisal.

Robinson will have to prove that CNN acted with malice to intentionally harm the candidate’s reputation. With that in mind, CNN may move quickly to dismiss the case, said Kieran Shanahan, a former federal prosecutor and Raleigh attorney.

“The first thing that happens in a lot of lawsuits is that a defendant, or defendants will come in and challenge the sufficiency of a complaint, saying, ‘Even if everything is true, it's still not a malice level of defamation, therefore the judge should dismiss it,’” Shanahan said, adding that he thought Robinson put forth a cogent case.

CNN hadn’t responded in court as of late Thursday.

Another defendant Robinson is suing, former Greensboro-area adult store worker Louis Money, has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

Mattei predicted a judge would dismiss the case if Robinson doesn’t withdraw it before the discovery process. He echoed Shanahan’s comments saying Robinson has to do more than just prove CNN’s article is inaccurate — he also has to prove CNN knew or should have known its information was false before publishing its report.

Mattei said he found CNN’s reporting to be compelling and thorough.

In the wake of the report, Robinson has lost campaign staff, state office staff, and support from major political action groups that spent millions of dollars helping his campaign in North Carolina.

North Carolina Republicans have also called on Robinson to address or disprove the network’s reporting and take legal action. On its face, Robinson’s lawsuit doesn’t disprove CNN’s reporting, though Robinson’s legal team described Tuesday’s legal filing as a first step toward holding CNN accountable.

“We will use every tool at our disposal now that a lawsuit has been filed, including the subpoena power, in order to continue pursuing the facts,” Jesse Binnall, Robinson’s Virginia-based lawyer, said during a news conference Tuesday.

CNN reported that it tracked a username associated with the comments to Robinson's name and other identifying information. The network reported that the username used on Nude Africa was the same as one Robinson used on public social media websites, including Twitter.

Robinson contends the article was based on data from what he describes as a dubious website and unverifiable information obtained on the dark web.

Robinson says anyone could have hacked into his email and found other details needed to impersonate him. However, Shanahan said, attempting to disprove CNN’s report could take a significant amount of time and money.

Shanahan has worked on cases involving online material that has been manipulated. Investigating the material can be a long, arduous process, he said. Cybersecurity or IT professionals who have the qualifications to serve in court cases as expert witnesses can charge hundreds of dollars an hour for their work, and the work can be slow-going.

“It's very expensive to use an expert to recreate or find out what happened on the dark web,” Shanahan said.

Pizza, porn, Money

The other defendant Robinson is suing, Money, was among half a dozen people who told news magazine The Assembly this year that, in the 1990s and early 2000s, Robinson frequently came into two Greensboro stores to watch and buy explicit videos. Money first went public in a song that his band, the Trailer Park Orchestra, posted on YouTube.

Robinson's campaign had originally told reporters that Money's claims were "ridiculous" and that "the extent of their relationship" was that Money sometimes came into the Papa John's Pizza store where Robinson used to work. In his lawsuit, however, Robinson acknowledged sometimes visiting an adult video store where Money worked to "bring over free pizza and socialize."

“His story changed, and mine never has,” Money said.

Robinson’s lawsuit takes issue with some of Money’s quotes in The Assembly, such as Money’s claim that Robinson hung out at the adult video store “five nights a week” to purchase videos from Money.

If Money’s account is accurate, Martin said he would have no liability. If Money completely fabricated his stories about Robinson, he could be in trouble. If he’s misremembering the exact details of his encounters with Robinson, he may be on safer ground, she said.

The 1991 U.S. Supreme Court case Masson v. New Yorker Magazine protected a reporter who misquoted the plaintiff — but not in a way that changed the meaning of plaintiff’s comments.

“If, in fact, he was spending hours at the video store four nights a week [rather than five] then someone might conclude those are essentially the same in terms of the meaning,” Martin said.

Generally speaking, Martin said, the gist of a person’s statement is what matters most in a libel suit. “Not is it verbatim or technically, exactly correct, but is it essentially true?” Martin said.

Other NC defamation suits

Robinson is far from the only North Carolina politician to be involved in a defamation lawsuit, as either a plaintiff or a defendant, in recent years. The heated nature of politics, particularly in a competitive state like North Carolina, has led to several high-profile lawsuits just in the last few election cycles — including at least one other this year.

In the race to replace Stein as attorney general, Republican nominee Dan Bishop is suing the campaign of his Democratic opponent, Jeff Jackson, over a question in a poll the campaign paid for. The question said Bishop “represented people who stole money from the elderly,” a claim Bishop denies. His lawsuit against Jackson’s campaign also names a variety of other Democratic organizations and volunteers, but not Jackson himself.

Some other recent political defamation cases include:

  • Stein was nearly criminally charged in 2022 over an ad in his 2020 campaign for attorney general against Jim O’Neill. O’Neill, the Forsyth County district attorney, asked Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman to charge Stein with violating an obscure and never-before-used law that criminalized defamation. Stein countersued, calling that law unconstitutional, and won. Freeman was forced to drop the investigation.
    • The current governor, Democrat Roy Cooper, was sued by his Republican opponent in the 2000 race for attorney general, Dan Boyce, over an ad attacking Boyce. The case dragged on for more than a decade, featuring high-powered lawyers on each side.
      • A former Rockingham County Commissioner is suing several current commissioners, including the son of top state Senate leader, in a defamation case related to failed plans to build a casino there.
        • The Moore County clerk of court sued two local current or retired judges in 2023, claiming they slandered him in a conspiracy against his political career that involved bringing criminal charges against him for contempt of court.
          • State Sen. Michael Lee, a Wilmington Republican, sued Democratic opponent Marcia Morgan over an ad she ran in their 2022 campaign.
            • Then-Gov. Pat McCrory’s 2016 reelection campaign, and several of its lawyers and volunteers, were sued for defamation for falsely accusing dozens of people of committing voter fraud during his close loss to Cooper that year. McCrory himself wasn’t named as a defendant.

              Some of those cases are still active. But, in the others, the plaintiffs either lost or settled out of court.

              Cooper eventually settled his case with Boyce by agreeing to publicly apologize. Morgan similarly settled by apologizing to Lee. Stein had an easy victory in federal court when the law used to target him was ruled an unconstitutional First Amendment violation. The Moore County cases, civil and criminal, were all dismissed. The McCrory campaign accusers did win at trial and the Court of Appeals, but in the end they lost at the North Carolina Supreme Court in a ruling that came down just a few months ago.