Nicholas Sandmann Announces Settlement of His Giant Lawsuit Against Washington Post
Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann announced Friday that his defamation lawsuit against The Washington Post had been settled.
“On 2/19/19, I filed $250M defamation lawsuit against Washington Post. Today, I turned 18 & WaPo settled my lawsuit,” Sandmann tweeted.
“Thanks to my family & millions of you who have stood your ground by supporting me. I still have more to do.”
On 2/19/19, I filed $250M defamation lawsuit against Washington Post. Today, I turned 18 & WaPo settled my lawsuit. Thanks to @ToddMcMurtry & @LLinWood for their advocacy. Thanks to my family & millions of you who have stood your ground by supporting me. I still have more to do.
— Nicholas Sandmann (@N1ckSandmann) July 24, 2020
Sandmann had sued The Washington Post and CNN, as well as other left-leaning news outlets, for defamation last year in light of its reports surrounding a politically controversial incident involving the teen.
CNN settled its lawsuit with the teen in January, but the amount of the settlement was not made public at the time, WXIX-TV reported.
“The fight isn’t over. 2 down. 6 to go,” Sandmann tweeted Friday.
He added a note to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey: “Don’t hold your breath @jack.”
We have settled with WAPO and CNN.
The fight isn’t over. 2 down. 6 to go.
Don’t hold your breath @jack.
— Nicholas Sandmann (@N1ckSandmann) July 24, 2020
Lawyer Lin Wood also celebrated the settlement on Twitter, saying for Sandmann’s birthday they gave him “the gift of justice.”
“We are pleased that we have been able to reach a mutually agreeable resolution of the remaining claims in this lawsuit,” a spokesperson for The Washington Post told Fox News.
Sandmann and the other teens from Covington made national news when a confrontation erupted after the January 2019 March for Life.
The initial video spread by some outlets implied that the teens wearing “Make America Great Again” hats started the confrontation with Native American activist Nathan Phillips, but later video that showed the incident more fully made it clear that they did not.
Many also assumed Sandmann was smirking and disrespectful while face-to-face with Phillips, who was chanting and banging a drum.
A complete version of the video, however, showed Phillips had walked toward the boys.
Sandman filed the $250 million libel suit over The Post’s coverage of the incident in February 2019.
Lawyer Todd McMurtry said the goal of the suits is to change the “mainstream media’s” behavior.
“Clearly, what we want to do is stop them from behaving in a way that discards all journalistic integrity,” he said in March 2019. “Here they didn’t investigate. They took something off of Twitter and put it right out into the media.”
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