HuffPost Facing Defamation Lawsuit for Kavanaugh Hit Piece
By many accounts, the establishment media got away with murder during the Supreme Court confirmation proceedings for then-federal appeals court Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
In the judge’s own words, all manner of “nonsense” claims — from his alleged membership “in gangs” committing cold, calculated rapes in high school or the physical altercations he supposedly got into “on boats in Rhode Island” in recent years — was not only humored, but “printed and run breathlessly” by the media.
Last September, it seemed nobody who had come into contact with Kavanaugh over the course of his life was safe from a ruthless tarring and feathering at the hands of an uncritical left-wing media machine.
Now, however, it appears at least one of the outlets responsible for more than a handful of those vitriolic smears carried out on Kavanaugh and his acquaintances may be held accountable — and for alleging one of the judge’s high school classmates got away with killing someone, no less.
According to the The Washington Free Beacon, HuffPost and one of its former reporters, Ashley Feinberg, are being sued for the defamation of a former Georgetown Preparatory School student who had allegedly attended the same parties as Kavanaugh in high school.
Derrick Evans, described by The Free Beacon as an “African-American professor and community activist,” was initially implicated by the outlet in a Sept. 20 article entitled “Former Student: Brett Kavanaugh’s Prep School Party Scene Was A ‘Free-For-All’” — in which he was suggested to have been party to a drug purchase that resulted in the death of Robert F. Kennedy’s son, David.
The initial article reportedly suggested that “two students — David’s brother Doug, and his friend Derrick Evans — had helped score the coke” that lead to his untimely death.
This was, however, untrue.
In its complaint, Evans legal team alleges that “zeal to create a sensational article about Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s years at [Georgetown Prep] and thereby drive traffic to its website” led the outlet to “recklessly” disregard the truth and libel an innocent man.
Evans was simply “present” on the night in question, and it was reportedly his testimony which led to key arrests in Kennedy’s death.
“If Ms. Feinberg or her HuffPost editors had done even the most basic research of publicly available sources, she and they would have known, if they did not already know, that Mr. Evans actively assisted law enforcement in identifying and prosecuting the individuals who actually sold the illegal narcotics,” the complaint reads.
Feinberg’s article was corrected on Sept. 21, but that correction reportedly still defamed Evans, claiming he “helped David purchase the drugs.”
After a follow-up correction was issued, the lies were stripped from the piece, but the correction concedes no more than, “this article previously mischaracterized the involvement of individuals in a drug purchase. References to those individuals and the incident have been removed. We regret the error.”
No apology is included. Nor are any indicators that the mischaracterization had the potential to ruin Evans’ life.
Evans is suing for damages including “pre-judgment and post-judgment interest, costs, punitive damages and attorney fees” and any “further relief that [the] Court deems just and proper.”
Feinberg now serves as a reporter at the similarly left-wing publication Slate.
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