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RALEIGH, N.C. -- CNN wants a court to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed by North Carolina Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson that attacks its report that he made explicit posts on a pornography website’s message board. The network says Robinson presented no evidence that the network believed its story was false or aired it recklessly. The September report says Robinson, who ran unsuccessfully for governor this month, left statements over a decade ago on the message board in which, in part, he referred to himself as a “black NAZI" and said he enjoyed transgender pornography. The report also says he preferred Adolf Hitler to then-President Barack Obama and slammed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as “worse than a maggot.” Robinson, who was seeking to become the state's first Black governor, said he didn’t write those posts and sued in October, just before early in-person voting was to begin. While filing a dismissal motion Thursday in Raleigh federal court, attorneys for CNN said Robinson’s arguments suggesting he was the likely victim of a computer hacking operation that created fake messages would require a series of events that is not just “implausible, it is ridiculous.” Generally speaking, a public official claiming defamation must show a defendant knew a statement it made was false or did so with reckless disregard for the truth. “Robinson did not and cannot plausibly allege facts that show that CNN published the Article with actual malice,” attorney Mark Nebrig wrote in a memo backing the dismissal motion, adding that the lawsuit “does not include a single allegation demonstrating that CNN doubted the veracity of its reporting.” For Robinson, who already had a history of inflammatory comments about topics like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights , the CNN story nearly led to the collapse of his campaign. After the report's airing, most of his top campaign staff quit, advertising from the Republican Governors Association stopped and fellow Republicans distanced themselves from him, including President-elect Donald Trump. Robinson lost to Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein by nearly 15 points and will leave office at year-end. Robinson's lawsuit was initially filed in state court. It says, in part, that CNN chose to run its report based on data from the website NudeAfrica, which had been hacked several years ago and ran on vulnerable, outdated software. His suit claims the network did nothing to verify the posts. He's seeking monetary damages. Thursday's memo highlights the network's story, including a section where the CNN journalists showed how they connected Robinson to a username on the NudeAfrica site. As the CNN story said previously, the memo says the network matched details of the account on the message board to other online accounts held by Robinson by comparing usernames, an email address and his full name. The details discussed by the account holder matched Robinson’s length of marriage, where he lived at the time, and that both Robinson and the account holder had mothers who worked at a historically Black university, the memo says. CNN also said it found matches of figures of speech used by both the NudeAfrica account holder and in Robinson’s social media posts. “This is hardly a case where, as Robinson alleges, CNN ‘disregarded or deliberately avoided the truth’ rather than investigate,” Nebrig said, adding later that the network “had no reason to seriously doubt that Robinson was the author” of the posts. Robinson's attorneys didn't immediately respond to an email Friday seeking comment. The lawsuit says anyone could have used Robinson's breached data to create accounts on the internet. His state lawsuit also sued Louis Love Money, a former porn shop worker who alleged in a music video and a media interview that for several years starting in the 1990s, Robinson frequented a porn shop where Money was working and that Robinson purchased porn videos from him. Robinson said that was untrue. Money filed his own dismissal motion in the state lawsuit. But since then, CNN moved the lawsuit to federal court, saying that it's the proper venue for a North Carolina resident like Robinson and a Georgia-based company like CNN and that the claims against Money are unrelated.Minnesota’s journey toward a recreational cannabis market hit a roadblock Monday when a local judge delayed the state's first lottery for cannabis business licenses. The decision follows lawsuits filed by applicants who claim they were unfairly excluded from the process, reported The Minnesota Star Tribune. Judge Stephen Smith ordered the state's Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) to postpone the Tuesday lottery for social equity applicants. The delay aims to provide the Court of Appeals time to address legal challenges raised by the rejected applicants. The lottery is set to grant 282 social equity applicants pre-approval for cannabis business licenses. This move may impact the timeline for launching Minnesota's retail cannabis market. Read Also: Minnesota Cannabis Update As Industry Prepares To Launch Retail Sales Rejections Spark Lawsuits Out of 1,817 applicants , 1,169 were denied entry into the lottery. The OCM cited failures to meet qualifying standards or submit proper documentation as reasons for rejection. However, rejected applicants argue the process lacked transparency and clarity. Attorney Courtney Ernston , representing one of the plaintiffs, criticized the vague nature of rejection notices. "Simply saying the word ‘fail' is not a reason," Ernston said, adding that her client received no detailed explanation for her exclusion. Applicants and their legal representatives contend that the lack of transparency undermines their ability to contest or correct the rejections. Get Benzinga's exclusive analysis and the top news about the cannabis industry and markets daily in your inbox for free. Subscribe to our newsletter here . You can’t afford to miss out if you're serious about the business. Implications For Minnesota's Cannabis Market The delayed lottery raises concerns about potential setbacks in establishing Minnesota's cannabis market. The program’s social equity focus aims to prioritize individuals disproportionately affected by past cannabis prohibition, Gov. Tim Walz pointed out in an interview in February. “Philosophically our goal is to make sure the equity piece was a big part of this. We certainly want to stay within the parameters of the law of who we can give help to. But I think the idea was, too often marginalized communities are left to the side. They’re left back,” Walz said. Read Next: EXCLUSIVE: Can Minnesota Keep Its Cannabis Industry Local Amid Out-Of-State Pressure? Legal Expert Weighs In Cover: Photo by Josh Hild via Pexels © 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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