A federal judge in Colorado issued a scathing rebuke of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell for allegedly submitting a court filing rife with errors because his attorney allegedly used a generative artificial intelligence program, citing several court cases that don’t exist. The filing came in connection with a defamation lawsuit against the pillow magnate filed by Eric Coomer, the former head of product security for Dominion Voting Systems, over the numerous false claims levied against him and the company by Lindell following the 2020 presidential election.

According to a six-page order from U.S. District Judge Nina Y. Wang, the incident began when Lindell’s attorney, Christopher Kachouroff, came unprepared to an April 21, hearing. During that hearing, Wang questioned Kachouroff about a number of errors in an opposition motion he had signed and filed.

“These defects include but are not limited to misquotes of cited cases; misrepresentations of principles of law associated with cited cases, including discussions of legal principles that simply do not appear within such decisions; misstatements regarding whether case law originated from a binding authority such as the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit; misattributions of case law to this District; and most egregiously, citation of cases that do not exist,” Wang wrote. “Despite having every opportunity to do so, Mr. Kachouroff declined to explain to the Court how the Opposition became replete with such fundamental errors.”

Kachouroff initially claimed that he had simply “made a mistake” and accidentally “paraphrased” some cases, but eventually told the court that he had “given the cite checking to another person.”

“Time and time again, when Mr. Kachouroff was asked for an explanation of why citations to legal authorities were inaccurate, he declined to offer any explanation, or suggested that it was a “draft pleading,” the judge wrote.

Fox News received mix news from a Manhattan judge on Thursday in an effort to obtain testimony about the valuation of voting software and hardware company Smartmatic Corp.

Attorneys for the network hoped to depose billionaire Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of business-themed social media website LinkedIn.

In a bench ruling, New York Supreme Court Justice David Cohen nixed the Hoffman deposition request, according to a courtroom report by Courthouse News Service. The network aimed to get Hoffman on the record over reported comments made by one of the billionaire’s longtime associates about a meeting with Smartmatic’s top brass.

At the same time, the judge signed off on a request to depose Dmitri Mehlhorn, Hoffman’s former political strategist and business partner.

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Verdicts & Settlements

Former George Mason University law prof says he’s ‘fully vindicated’ after ‘relatively modest’ defamation suit settlement

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 12, 2025, 2:59 pm CDT

A former professor at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School has reached a settlement in his defamation lawsuit against two former students who alleged that he abused his power to initiate sexual relationships with them when they were law students.

Professor Joshua D. Wright settled with Elyse Dorsey and dropped his claim against Freshfields counsel Angela Landry, report Law.com, Law360 and Reuters.

His suit, filed in Fairfax County, Virginia, circuit court, had sought $108 million in damages.

The articles identify Dorsey as a Kirkland & Ellis partner, but the law firm’s website page for her appears to have been removed.

Dorsey’s settlement “provides Wright with a relatively modest amount of compensation and allows Dorsey to continue speaking out,” Law.com reports. Wright filed a motion to end the litigation last week.

Wright had maintained that the relationships were consensual, and the two women were “scorned former lovers.” In a statement released to Law360, he said he is “relieved to have been fully vindicated. The evidence has made it undeniably clear that the relationships in question were consensual from the start. I remain fully committed to defending my reputation and will not hesitate to take further legal action if necessary to hold accountable those responsible for false accusations.”

The two defendants said they were pleased with the development.

A statement by Dorsey’s lawyer said the settlement will exclusively be paid from insurance “and constituted less than 0.3% of the damages professor Wright sought in the litigation,” according to Law.com.

“Settling this case was a difficult decision, but it allows me to continue my advocacy work without the distraction or continued trauma of ongoing litigation,” Dorsey said in a statement cited by Law.com.

Wright has the option of refiling his claim within six months against Landry. Her lawyer, Stacey Rose Harris, told Law.com that the dismissal “obviously speaks for itself.”

“Parties ‘vindicated’ in litigation don’t voluntarily dismiss their own claims on the eve of trial,” Harris said.

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Attorneys for CBS are asking a federal judge in Texas to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump accusing the network of engaging in “naked forum-shopping” as part of an effort to have the case heard by a judge that may be more amenable to the president’s claims

The now-$20 billion suit stems from the network’s October 2024, “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. It claims the aired footage was deceptively “doctored” to “tip the scales” in favor of Democrats, which amounted to “unlawful election interference.”

The long-shot complaint was filed in November 2024 in the Northern District of Texas Amarillo Division, where U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk — a Trump appointee known to be particularly receptive to conservative lawsuits — is the lone federal judge. The problem, according attorneys for CBS and its parent company, Paramount Global, is that the court has no jurisdiction because none of the allegations in the complaint have any connection to the Lone Star State.

“Plaintiff Donald J. Trump, a citizen of Florida, brings this lawsuit against three media companies, all of which are based in New York, over an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris that took place in Washington, D.C., was edited in New York, and was later broadcast across the United States from New York,” the opening line of the network’s 33-page motion states. “President Trump knows well that he cannot simply select his preferred jurisdiction when that jurisdiction bears little or no relationship to the events giving rise to his claim.”

Likely anticipating the defendants’ would challenge the suit on jurisdictional grounds, Trump last month added as a co-plaintiff to the action: Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, a Republican from Amarillo who previously served as Trump’s White House doctor.

The amended complaint states that Jackson is “a consumer of broadcast and digital news media content,” including content from CBS, and “he has thus been injured.”

A federal appeals court in Iowa handed Devin Nunes another loss in his defamation suit against journalist Ryan Lizza and Hearst Magazines over a 2018 Esquire article that said the Nunes family’s dairy farm knowingly employed undocumented immigrants after a lower court judge determined that the story was “substantially, objectively true.”

A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on Monday affirmed the lower court’s ruling which granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, reasoning that the former Republican congressman-turned-Truth Social CEO and his family’s dairy farm failed to provide any evidence that the article caused monetary damage.

The former California congressman, who has waged numerous unsuccessful (so far) lawsuits over the years — perhaps most infamously against the Twitter accounts Devin Nunes’ Cow and Devin Nunes’ Mom — first filed suit against Lizza and Hearst in September 2019. The complaint alleged that Politico’s Lizza, then an independent contractor reporting for Esquire, defamed the congressman with actual malice and conspired to publish the “hit piece” headlined “Devin Nunes’s Family Farm is Hiding a Politically Explosive Secret.”

A second defamation lawsuit was filed on behalf of the dairy farm itself, NuStar Farms, Anthony Nunes Jr. and Anthony Nunes III, Devin Nunes’ father and brother, on Jan. 16, 2020. The cases were consolidated in February 2022.

A federal judge in Georgia has tossed out a lawsuit filed by a former Trump White House ethics lawyer accusing members of the House Committee to Investigate Jan. 6 of civil conspiracy and invasion of privacy in connection with their investigation into the attack on the Capitol.

U. S. District Judge Eleanor L. Ross on Wednesday granted the government’s request to dismiss the case brought by Stefan Passantino, who claimed that members of the Committee leaked transcripts of confidential interviews to CNN to “ensure maximum damage” was done to his “reputation and his existing and future legal, political, and business clients.”

Passantino was deputy White House counsel during the first Trump administration who went back to the private sector during the Biden administration and worked for the Trump-supporting political action committee, Save America Leadership. There, he represented several people who testified before the Jan. 6 Committee.

Passantino was the first lawyer to represent Cassidy Hutchinson, the former special assistant to President Trump and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, in her meetings with the Committee.

According to Passantino, then-Congresswoman Liz Cheney and Senior Investigative Counsel Dan George in May 2022 contacted Hutchinson without his knowledge and advised his client that he “would not be advancing her interests” because he “was being paid by a Trump-affiliated third-party,” which ultimately led to her seeking new counsel.

Hutchinson participated in several additional interviews and in December 2022, a CNN reporter contacted Passantino and said an unreleased transcript from one of Hutchinson’s interviews suggested he had counseled her “not to answer the Committee’s questions fully and honestly.”

Hutchinson testified that before her initial sessions with the Committee, Passantino would dangle potential jobs “in Trumpworld” and tell her she would be “taken care of.”

A senior CNN employee found himself in the hot seat during the fourth day of the civil trial between the U.S. Navy veteran and the cable news network he claims defamed him in a story about his work extracting people from war-torn Afghanistan.

Taking the stand was Fuzz Hogan, who is currently employed as a senior director with CNN’s standards and practices department.

The witness played a key role in the ongoing drama; at the time the story in question aired, Hogan worked as a fact-checker and was the person responsible for clearing the facts in the story itself.

Donald Trump implored a federal judge in Pennsylvania to toss out the defamation lawsuit filed against him by members of the Central Park Five over comments the president-elect made during last year’s presidential debate, claiming the falsely-accused quintet are portraying his “substantially true” comments out of context.

The 12-page reply motion seeking to have the suit dismissed was filed Wednesday in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and reiterated many of Trump’s previous arguments about the case, mainly, claiming the plaintiffs rely on “misrepresentations of President-elect Trump’s arguments” that could only be defamatory if one were “reviewing the at-issue statements out of context.”

Rudy Giuliani appeared in a federal courtroom in Manhattan on Friday for a hearing on whether he should be held in contempt after the onetime personal attorney for President-elect Donald Trump allegedly flouted multiple court orders in connection with the two Georgia election workers he defamed trying to collect the $148 million judgment awarded in their favor.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman, a Trump appointee, ordered Giuliani to appear in person for the Jan. 3 hearing on the contempt issue following numerous requests from the plaintiffs regarding his “consistent pattern of willful defiance” involving court orders to turn over of his personal property and provide information to plaintiffs for discovery.

Liman on Thursday rejected Giuliani’s last-minute request to appear virtually for the contempt hearing after the former New York City mayor said he was “having medical issues with his left knee” as well as “breathing problems due to lung issues” that were the result of him “being at the World Trade Center site on September 11, 2001.”

The hearing, which began at 10 a.m., went through the day and will be continued at the same time on Monday. However, Liman will allow Giuliani to appear virtually for the proceedings as he will not be questioned by plaintiff’s counsel again.

A federal judge on Friday finally pulled out the remaining stops and ordered a quick series of depositions in a contentious defamation case involving ABC News and President-elect Donald Trump.

In a terse, two-page order, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida ordered star anchor George Stephanopoulos to sit down and answer questions under oath and in person. Notably, the judge also ordered the 45th and 47th president to do the same.

And, those depositions must occur sometime next week.

The once and future president is suing because Stephanopoulos said “more than 10 times” on “This Week” in March that Trump had been found “liable for rape” in the E. Jean Carroll civil case.

The underlying lawsuit was filed just eight days after that segment — during which the anchor interviewed Rep. Nancy Mace, a Georgia Republican, and pressed her to explain her support for Trump.

The implication was never left in doubt during the broadcast: Stephanopoulos pointed out Mace herself is a rape victim and repeatedly claimed Trump had been found “liable for rape” by a jury.

The upshot of the Carroll lawsuit, however, is unclear.

The lawsuit argues that ABC and Stephanopoulos defamed Trump in an article’s initial headline and during the broadcast with the claim — even though the jury verdict sheet specifically said “no” as to the rape allegation.

What complicated matters was some verbiage from a post-verdict opinion written by Senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan.

In a footnote, the judge wrote: “As the jury’s response to Question 2 was an implicit finding that Mr. Trump forcibly digitally penetrated Ms. Carroll’s vagina, no explicit independent finding by the Court is necessary. Nevertheless, the Court alternatively finds that he did so.”

Under New York law, forcible digital penetration does not qualify as rape, the judge explained. But, he added that “far narrower” definition conflicts with the “common modern parlance.”

“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,”” Kaplan wrote. “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

More Law&Crime coverage: ‘No reason for any further delay’: Fed-up judge in Trump defamation case against ABC News, George Stephanopoulos refuses demand to push back trial date

Still, law thrives on definitional precision.

Trump’s lawsuit argues Stephanopoulos must have known his statements were false because he has “vast experience as a journalist” and once “specifically” asked E. Jean Carroll how she felt that Trump “was not found liable for rape.” The plaintiff further alleged ABC rebuffed a retraction demand and did not apologize, only changing an article headline from “Nancy Mace defends her support Trump after he was found liable for rape” to “Nancy Mace defends her support Trump after he was found liable for sexual assault.”

The parties have battled it out in motions practice for months. Last month, Chief U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga got fed up with the state of play and declined to reschedule deadlines related to expert witnesses, discovery, mediation, and various pretrial motions.

Currently, the trial is slated to begin on April 7, 2025, and is anticipated to last between three to five days.

In her latest order, the judge ordered depositions for both men “be scheduled to take place the week of December 16, 2024.”

Each deposition will be limited to four hours.

Additionally, the court ordered ABC News to provide “all remaining documents (if any) related to Plaintiff’s damages, for review by Plaintiff’s damages expert” by Dec. 15.

Altonaga warned ABC News and Trump that she would not countenance any further efforts at pushing things back from either side.

“The parties are reminded that the Court ‘has already granted a lengthy discovery period . . . and, with Election Day now behind us, there is no reason for any further delay,’” the order concludes — quoting her own November order. “The parties shall continue to meet and confer regarding their remaining discovery disputes.”