Thursday, January 9, 2020

Reza Aslan to Face the Music For Calling Nick Sandmann's Face 'Punchable' In Now-Deleted Tweet

Nick Sandman faces down Nathan Phillips.
Nick Sandmann, Nathan Phillips. Image via YouTube.
One day after news broke that CNN settled a defamation lawsuit on behalf of Covington Catholic teen Nick Sandmann, Robert Barnes announced he had sued author, producer, and show host Reza Aslan for Aslan's tweet describing Sandmann's face as "punchable." The lawsuit, which Barnes provided to PJ Media, would slap Aslan with a minimum of $135,000 in damages.
When video of Sandmann supposedly smirking at a Native American man outside the March for Life went viral last year, Aslan infamously tweeted, "Honest question. Have you ever seen a more punchable face than this kid's?"
Twitter screenshot of Reza Aslan describing Nick Sandmann's face as "punchable."
Nearly exactly one year after posting the tweet, Aslan had finally deleted it on Wednesday.
Barnes responded to the news that the tweet had been deleted by announcing his lawsuit. "Apparently, Reza Aslan got served the suit I filed against him on behalf of [the Covington boys]," he tweeted.
The lawsuit, provided to PJ Media and originally filed in August 2019, names a broad swath of media figures and politicians as defendants, including Ana Navarro, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Maggie Haberman, and Kathy Griffin. Barnes told PJ Media he believes Aslan was served this week, because his team was not able to find the author's address until last week. According to the lawsuit, the tweet calling Sandmann's face "punchable" further spread the false narrative that the Covington Catholic boys had aggressively insulted the Native American man, when that was not the case.
The lawsuit seeks justice for the defamation of nine anonymous Covington Catholic boys.
"False and Defamatory Accusations against the plaintiffs are defamatory per se, as they are libelous on their face without resort to additional facts, and as clearly demonstrated here, [the plaintiffs] were subjected to public hatred, contempt, scorn, obloquy, and shame," the lawsuit argues. "The conduct of the plaintiffs, based on the false facts the defendants placed and circulated into the court of public opinion, led to these lifetime labels on these minors: 'display of hate, disrespect and intolerance'; 'heartbreaking'; 'decency decayed'; 'racist'; 'cried for America'; 'infamous'; 'gall'; 'shameful'; 'darker chapters'; compared to genocide; 'laughing and egging on' 'hurtful' behavior; 'awful'; 'cavemen gestures'; 'taunting'; ‘harassing'; 'stalking'; 'mocking'; 'bullies' who should be doxed, 'named and shamed', expelled from school, denied admission to college, be punched in the face, and their lives ruined."
Defamation is a high bar in American law, but the kind of non-repentant and slanderous attacks these young men faced — often for the alleged crime of wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat — arguably meets it.
The lawsuit asks the court to award "damages in an amount not less than $15,000 but not more than $50,000 against each defendant" on behalf of each plaintiff, which adds up to between $135,000 and $450,000 against each defendant.
Reza Aslan did not respond to PJ Media's request for comment by press time.
Follow Tyler O'Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.

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