The media had lambasted the Covington Catholic High School student from Kentucky, now 19, over a confrontation at the 2019 March for Life in Washington, D.C., reports The NY Post.
Following the 2019 incident in Washington, D.C., many media outlets and Democratic politicians criticized Sandmann for a confrontation with a Native American elder at the Lincoln Memorial following the march.
Sandmann was recorded on video wearing one of former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign hats while smiling at the activist, Nathan Phillips, as Phillips beat a ceremonial drum and chanted at him in close proximity.
Several media reports at the time claimed the incident was racially charged on the part of the White teenager, which Sandmann and other witnesses disputed.
People have judged Sandmann “based off one expression, which I wasn’t smirking, but people have assumed that’s what I have,” he said a 2019 interview with NBC News anchor Savannah Guthrie.
Nearby members of the Black Hebrew Israelites group were shouting slurs at him and his classmates, he added.
“I heard them call us incest kids, bigots, racists,” Sandmann said.
His filing against NBC-Universal and MSNBC reportedly asked for $275 million in damages.
CNN and the Washington Post both settled defamation lawsuits from Sandmann in 2020 for undisclosed amounts.
The suit against CNN sought damages for “emotional distress Nicholas and his family suffered” in the fallout of the network’s reporting.
Law school professor William Jacobson told Fox News at the time that CNN agreeing to settle is a “rare example of a ‘little guy’ being able to stand up to a media behemoth” and estimated the deal was worth at least seven figures.
In 2020, Sandmann attorney Todd McMurtry told Fox News that lawsuits against “as many as 13 other defendants will be filed,” including ABC, CBS, The Guardian, HuffPost, NPR, Slate, The Hill, and Gannett, which owns the Cincinnati Enquirer as well as other small outlets.
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