By Leah Cruz
Staff Writer
North Carolina’s Republican nominee for governor, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, sued CNN for defamation on Oct. 15 after a report exposed racial and sexual comments allegedly authored by him on a pornography site.
Robinson claims that the published report is a “high-tech lynching” and an attempt to damage his political career, according to the Associated Press. The report, published on Sept. 19, details the comments allegedly made by Robinson over a decade ago, including one where he refers to himself as a “black NAZI” and a “perv.”
The comments were made on a site called Nude Africa under the username minisoldr, which the CNN investigation was able to match to Robinson’s email address and other online accounts that displayed biographical information, including the length of his marriage and his age, reported the New York Times.
Robinson has denied the allegations, and said in a news conference in Raleigh that he is “holding CNN accountable.” This report, Robinson believes, is an attack on his gubernatorial campaign, and he aims to receive at least $50 million in damages, the AP reported. Robinson and his attorney, Jesse Binnall, have yet to provide evidence that the claims are false.
The lawsuit includes claims that Robinson’s data had been part of multiple breaches that could have led anyone to use his personal information online, as well as a claim that the comments authored by Robinson were taken from “hacked, data breach files, obtained from the dark web,” according to the Times.
Alongside suing CNN, Robinson is also suing a former video-pornogrpahy shop employee, Louis Money, who, weeks before CNN’s report was published, claimed Robinson frequented the shop in Greensboro, NC in the late 1990s. The Assembly reported that he visited the store as often as five times a week and purchased several bootleg porn videos, according to Money.
In August of this year, Money and his band, The Trailer Park Orchestra, released a music video to a song entitled “The Lt. Governor Owes Me Money,” in which the band acts out the lieutenant governor’s purchasing of bootleg porn videos from Money himself.
The AP reported that Robinson’s lawsuit reads, “Lt. Gov. Robinson was not spending hours at the video store, five nights a week. He was not renting or previewing videos, and he did not purchase ‘bootleg’ or other videos from Defendant Money.”
According to the Times, Robinson’s campaign has already been under fire for several reasons, one being a video from 2019 where he comments on abortion, saying, “An abortion in this country is not about protecting the lives of mothers. It’s about killing a child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.” Robinson’s message, included in a political ad run by his Democratic opponent Josh Stein, raised controversy.
After the CNN report, many Republican Party members distanced themselves from Robinson as well, with many expressing concern about how the allegations will impact former President Donald Trump’s chances of securing North Carolina’s electoral votes for the presidential election.
Robinson and his attorney maintain that the allegations are completely false, and that they intend to pursue the lawsuit against CNN. CNN has declined to comment on the lawsuit, according to the AP.
“We expect to find that there are more bad actors that have been involved in this process–to interfere with the election–and there is more to come,” said Binnall at the Raleigh news conference.
