CNN Defamation Trial: Editor Questioned Over 'Pretty Flawed' Report

CNN senior national security editor Thomas Lumley was grilled in court on Tuesday after internal messages showed he was highly skeptical of the "pretty flawed" report at the center of a high-profile defamation trial.

Zachary Young, a U.S. Navy veteran, alleges CNN smeared him in a November 2021 report that first aired on "The Lead with Jake Tapper," suggesting he illegally profited off desperate people trying to flee Afghanistan following the Biden administration's military withdrawal, implying he was involved in "black market" dealings and ruining his professional reputation as a result. The report first ran on television and then was turned into a print piece for CNN’s website. 

Fox News Digital reports Lumley, who has worked for CNN for over six years, was called as a witness after internal messages showed he felt the report was "full of holes like Swiss cheese." 

Jurors were shown a variety of emails and messages during Lumley’s testimony, including a message in which he suggested reporter Alex Marquardt should add information on whether people who pay large sums to get evacuated ever actually make it out of Afghanistan. 

Lumley received a draft of the print article that was written by Marquardt and responded saying, "One major thing not clear to me. Do any of the people who pay these guys actually get out of the country? I think we need a graf [paragraph] to explain. Is it totally hopeless?" 

One minute later, Lumley sent a message to a fellow CNN editor that said he didn’t "understand" a fundamental question about the story, and he was surprised that CNN’s fact-checking apparatus "triad" approved Marquardt's report.

Young had previously testified that he helped rescue at least 22 women from Afghanistan, but that information was never reported by CNN, indicating the network didn’t take Lumley’s advice. 

"I had a question I was interested in addressing," Lumley said when asked by Young’s lead counsel Vel Freedman if he had questions about the report. 

The CNN editor then attempted to backpedal on the comments he previously made to colleagues. 

"Those are my words on the page, but I actually think my question about the story was what I am going to call a storytelling question. It wasn’t a question about the accuracy and fairness of this story, which is what ‘triad’ is really concerned with," Lumley said.