North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson has filed a defamation lawsuit against CNN in response to a report last month linking him to dozens of racist, lewd and inflammatory comments on a porn site more than a decade ago.
The comments used slurs to refer to Martin Luther King Jr. and included recollections of "peeping" on women in public gym showers when the poster was a teenager. They also discussed enjoying transgender pornography and expressed support for slavery, saying "some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it (slavery) back. I would certainly buy a few."
According to CNN, the comments were made on a website called Nude Africa between 2008 and 2012. The comments were made under a profile that listed Robinson's full name with an email and username that Robinson used on many internet websites for decades, CNN reported. They also included unusual words and phrases that Robinson used on his personal Facebook page.
Robinson is the Republican nominee for North Carolina governor. Following the CNN report, nearly his entire campaign staff resigned, and he's slipped further behind in the polls against his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Josh Stein.
At a Tuesday morning news conference in Raleigh, Robinson again denied the CNN story and repeated claims that it was a "high-tech lynching."
"We are glad to take these first steps to fight back against what we consider to be one of the greatest examples of political interference in this state’s history and quite possibly this nation’s history," he said.
Robinson's attorney, Jesse Binnall, said CNN had declined to retract the story or share information about its reporting with Robinson's legal team. Binnall said the lawsuit would open CNN up to discovery, and potentially expose a number of "bad actors" who may have been involved in the story.
He also accused CNN of relying on unverified information from the "dark web" in its reporting.
"If you take that and then put it as the truth on your website, that can be one thing that is a reckless disregard for the truth and shows actual malice," Binnall said.
Binnall said the lawsuit will seek $50 million in damages. CNN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
