Judge Orders CNN To Provide Docs For Defamation Case

The judge in the high-stakes defamation lawsuit against CNN has issued an order on the network’s objections to the plaintiff’s discovery requests this week as litigation moves forward. 

U.S. Navy veteran Zachary Young alleges that CNN smeared his security consulting company, Nemex Enterprises Inc., by implying it illegally profited when helping people flee Afghanistan during the Biden administration's military withdrawal from the country in 2021. Young believes CNN "destroyed his reputation and business by branding him an illegal profiteer who exploited desperate Afghans" during a Nov. 11, 2021, segment on CNN’s "The Lead with Jake Tapper." 

Young’s legal team is seeking broad access to CNN’s books in order to determine the company’s net worth. CNN objected but Judge William Henry ruled that the plaintiff can have access to data from the pertinent time window, making the objections "sustained in part and overruled in part." 

In a court document obtained by Fox News Digital, Judge Henry ordered that the plaintiff’s "financial discovery requests shall be limited to the time period from September 2021 to the present, except as to documents that can only be produced on a yearly basis, in which case the applicable time period will be from January 1, 2021, to the present."

This comes after Judge Henry previously agreed with Young’s lead counsel Vel Freedman that CNN should hand over sensitive financial information that the cable network presented to its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.

CNN is also "required to produce documents relating to the effect of the specific publications at issue in this lawsuit and further republication by CNN employees on CNN’s market power, market share, or influence," according to the judge. 

Judge Henry ruled plaintiffs "may serve a subpoena on Warner Bros. Discovery" to obtain relevant documents.