A lawyer representing Sarah Palin sharply criticized the New York Times on Tuesday for what he called an insufficient apology over false claims in a 2017 editorial. The remarks came as the defamation retrial involving the former Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate entered its opening statements in a Manhattan federal courtroom.
At the center of the case is a June 2017 editorial, titled “America’s Lethal Politics,” which wrongly linked Palin to a mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona, where six people died and Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was gravely injured. The editorial suggested Palin might have incited the attack, referencing a map from her political action committee that placed Giffords and other Democrats under crosshairs.
Though the New York Times acknowledged the error, issued a written apology, and published a correction 14 hours after the editorial went online, Palin’s lawyer, Shane Vogt, argued that the corrections fell short. He pointed out that the apology never explicitly named Palin. “They just couldn’t bring themselves to say, ‘Governor Palin, we’re sorry, we made this mistake about you,’” Vogt said.
In contrast, the Times’ lawyer, Felicia Ellsworth, defended the paper’s actions, telling the jury that the newspaper took the necessary corrective steps and did so promptly. She added that Bennet, the editorial page editor at the time, did everything possible under pressure to rectify the situation.
This retrial comes after Palin’s initial loss in 2022, when a jury sided with the Times, but a subsequent ruling from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the trial had been compromised by judicial errors. The appeals court determined that critical evidence had been excluded, including proof that Bennet knew the allegations against Palin were false.
Palin’s case has broader implications, as she has used the lawsuit as a platform to challenge the landmark 1964 Supreme Court ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan. That case set the high bar for public figures to win defamation suits, requiring proof of “actual malice”—knowledge that the statement was false or reckless disregard for the truth.
Although Palin had hoped to seize this opportunity to overturn the Sullivan standard, the 2nd Circuit ruled that her delay in challenging it meant she had waived that argument. The Supreme Court declined to hear a similar case from casino mogul Steve Wynn in March, further cementing the legal protections for defamation claims against public figures.
As the retrial unfolds, it could have far-reaching consequences for the future of defamation law in the U.S.
