By Reuters

(CNN) — Retired Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz lost his bid on Friday to overturn a ruling that dismissed his defamation lawsuit against CNN over the news channel’s coverage of remarks he made during President Donald Trump’s 2020 impeachment trial.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Dershowitz presented no evidence that CNN’s reporters and commentators operated with “actual malice” in covering Dershowitz’s defense of Trump’s push for Ukraine to investigate his rival in the 2020 race, Democrat Joe Biden.

Dershowitz “made a spontaneous series of remarks before Congress that, he says, were misinterpreted by pundits. But even if those commentators did report incorrectly on Dershowitz’s statements, he has offered no evidence that they did so intentionally,” Judge Britt Grant wrote in the majority opinion.

Dershowitz in an interview said he would appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the 11th Circuit decision relied on a landmark 1964 ruling by the high court, New York Times v. Sullivan, that he said has “been expanded unrealistically to make lying journalists immune.”

He cited a concurring opinion in Friday’s decision by Judge Barbara Lagoa, who said she only voted to uphold the dismissal of Dershowitz’s lawsuit because she was bound by Sullivan.

Lagoa said there was “little dispute that CNN ‘defamed’ Alan Dershowitz under any common understanding of that term,” and that the “only thing standing between Dershowitz and justice is Sullivan.”

The third judge on the panel, Charles Wilson, in a concurring opinion defended Sullivan and the press protections it provides.

A CNN spokesperson declined to comment on the decision.

Dershowitz was one of several high-profile attorneys Trump tapped during his first presidential term after the Democratic-led House of Representatives impeached him in December 2019 on two charges arising from his dealings with Ukraine.

Trump had requested that Ukraine investigate Biden and his son Hunter, who had joined the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma while his father was U.S. vice president, for corruption. Biden later defeated Trump in the 2020 election.

Dershowitz during the impeachment trial offered an expansive defense of presidential power that provoked astonishment among Democrats.

“If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in an impeachment,” Dershowitz said, referring to the charge that Trump abused his power by using congressionally approved security aid as leverage to get a foreign power to smear Biden.

Dershowitz sued CNN following the outlet’s coverage of its remarks, including in its broadcasts. A federal judge in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, ruled for CNN in April 2023.

Dershowitz had argued that internal communications showed CNN and its commentators collaborated to damage his reputation. But Grant in Friday’s majority opinion said those internal messages “tend to support CNN’s position that the relevant speakers believed in the truth of their reporting.”

The case is Alan Dershowitz v. Cable News Network, Inc., 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 23-11270.

The-CNN-Wire
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