MIAMI (Legal Newsline) – CNN doesn’t want its employment agreements to become a part of the record in lawyer Alan Dershowitz’s $300 million defamation lawsuit against it.
The channel filed objections to a magistrate judge’s order on May 9 in Florida federal court as Dershowitz pursues claims his comments regarding former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
Magistrate Judge Alicia Valle’s order compelled production of employment/engagement agreements between CNN and some of its employees/contributors in order to determine if CNN offered bonuses for content that generated web traffic and television viewership.
“Because these documents contain highly confidential, commercially sensitive and personally private information, and are not relevant to the issues in the case, the order requiring production of these documents in full should be modified to require production of only the one thing Plaintiff asks for: language in the agreements, if any exists, about ‘incentives (that) were offered to commentators depending on viewership or click volume generated by their work or how many other news organizations picked up the CNN content,” the objection says.
The lawsuit claims CNN cherry-picked parts of Dershowitz’s answers when covering the trial, forgetting to include when Dershowitz, while representing Trump, said a president could be impeached and removed from office if what he did was “somehow illegal,” regardless of his desire to be re-elected, the suit says.
Instead, his answer was presented as if the president could perform illegal acts as long as he or she did so in order to be re-elected, the suit says.
CNN filed another objection to Valle’s order regarding Dershowitz’s $300 million request, which includes damages for emotional and reputational harm. It wants Dershowitz to be forced to produce evidence regarding his reputation that he offered in three other recent libel lawsuits, evidence of his increase income connected to the publication of the challenged statement and communications with his children concerning media appearances connected to the Trump trial.
The objection cites an Esquire article that says once a day, Dershowitz’s son calls to plead with him not go back on CNN.
A year ago, Judge Raag Singhal denied CNN’s motion to dismiss.