The judge has already ruled that CNN's story was false. And not just false -- the media skates on its many defamations by claiming an absence of malice in posting untrue defamations -- but also malicious.

Not just defamatory, then, but showing malice in their defamation.

And the victim of this malicious defamation is therefore eligible for punitive damages, which could top $1 billion.

Why did CNN target this man?

Simple -- he was rescuing women who cooperated with the US from reprisals by the Taliban. They were abandoned by Joe Biden, and I guess CNN decided to destroy this man because, by rescuing the victims of Joe Biden's disastrous bug-out, he embarrassed Biden.

Their emails prove that they were deliberately attempting to destroy this man and "ruin his reputation."

Nicholas Fondacaro of Newsbusters:

The case may not be as well known (yet), but CNN could be facing a defamation liability rivaling or exceeding the $787 million Fox News paid out to Dominion Voting Systems. NewsBusters recently reported on Florida's First District Court of Appeals affirming that plaintiff Zachary Young could seek punitive damages, in addition to economic and emotional damages, from the Cable News Network in a civil trial after they allegedly defamed him regarding his work in getting people out of Afghanistan. The total could near or exceed $1 billion.

For that outcome to be remotely in the cards, Young needed to prove malice and according to the ruling, he's done exactly that. "Young sufficiently proffered evidence of actual malice, express malice, and a level of conduct outrageous enough to open the door for him to seek punitive damages," Judge L. Clayton Roberts wrote in the court's ruling.

The court felt the high bars for actual and expressed malice were met because of internal CNN messages that were extremely vicious toward Young. Correspondent Alex Marquardt, the "primary reporter" expressed in a message to a colleague that he wanted to "nail this Zachary Young mfucker" and thought the story would be Young's "funeral." On that declaration of wanting to "nail" Young, CNN editor Matthew Philips responded: "gonna hold you to that cowboy!"

Alongside Marquardt, CNN senior editor Fuzz Hogan, who's a member of CNN's internally lauded "Triad" of editorial, legal, and standards/practices oversight personnel, described Young as "a shit."

In an interview with NewsBusters, Vel Freedman, the lawyer representing Young, said that "everyone makes mistakes" but what CNN's messages showed was a "systemic problem" inside the network. He added that their internal mechanism for accountability had "clearly failed" and opened themselves to "massive, massive liability."

Freedman told NewsBusters that his client had lost between $40-60 million in economic opportunity over the course of his now-damaged career as a security contractor since people in the field no longer wanted to work with him. If a jury awarded his client for emotional damages, the upper end could be as high as $600 million. The court recognizing the malice and outrageous conduct by CNN, effectively removed the cap on punitive damages in the State of Florida.

All of that meant CNN could be facing upwards of $1 billion in total damages.

The case hinged on CNN's use of the phrases "black market" and "exploited" to describe Young's legitimate business helping corporately sponsored Afghans escape the country as it collapsed around them and the Taliban retook control. Young's clients included Audible and Bloomberg News - one of CNN's industry peers, and he saved 24 people.

Freedman said CNN essentially "branded [Young] a human trafficker" and a "war profiteer" and broadcasted it to millions of households.

Jake Tapper, the host whose show the allegedly defamatory story ran on (The Lead), also made a point to note that people seeking escape were given "no guarantee of safety or success." Yet, at no point could CNN prove that what Young was doing was a scam. In fact, their editors admitted in messages that couldn't find evidence of it.

So CNN falsely accused this man, Without Evidence as Jake Tapper's snarky (and defamatory) chyrons might say, of committing major crimes including sex trafficking, war profiteering, and selling people on the black market.

And the judge has already ruled this was not just false but expressly maliciously false.

So what can they do?

Well, CNN is doubling down: They're claiming that this man broke Sharia law in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan -- by rescuing these women from the punishments the Taliban wanted to visit on them -- so isn't he a criminal one way or the other?

And doesn't that lessen the defamation CNN inflicted on him? After all, if he's a Sharia Law criminal, what's the big diff if CNN also calls him a sex trafficker?

So in their panic CNN is now trying to argue that Young was committing the crime of human trafficking under Taliban Sharia law and that he should have respected the will of the Taliban to rape, torture, and murder the women he was saving.

CNN essentially blamed Young's insistence that they accused him of a crime for their choice to cite Sharia law to prove their innocence:

But, even if Young is right that CNN accused him of illegal conduct--which CNN vigorously disputes--he still cannot prevail on his claims (...) discovery has indicated that the activities Young directed and funded almost certainly were illegal under Taliban law, as the Taliban prohibited Afghans (especially woman) from exiting the country without permission and vastly restricted their movement inside the country.

Nicholas Fondacaro
@NickFondacaro

What's the most ridiculous, desperate thing CNN could do to try to get out the $ 1 billion defamation suit against them?
This is it:

CNN cites Sharia law for their innocence in defamation suit, argue Navy vet is a criminal for saving women

One of the opening lines of CNN's latest filing argues that Zachary Young, in helping to get women out of Taliban oppression, carried out "activities he orchestrated and funded, which involved moving women out of Afghanistan, almost certainly were illegal under Taliban rule"

CNN goes on to argue that they were right to suggest Young was a criminal in their allegedly defamatory report, because "To get women out, the operators on the ground were required either to break the law directly or to find someone to break the law for them."

CNN listed off a series of illegal activities Young was supposedly guilty of: "avoiding the Taliban," "mak[ing] it past the Taliban checkpoints," and keeping "people hidden from the Taliban"--i.e., all activities that were illegal in Afghanistan at the time."

A CNN spokesperson told me: "Young takes issue with CNN referring to the conditions on the ground as a black market. Acknowledging the state of local law is a necessary part of the legal analysis. There is no good faith reading of CNN's filing that supports such a false, reckless, and malicious characterization."

In a normal world, other media organizations would be covering this and taking CNN's "cowboy culture" -- as the judge branded their "let's cancel whoever we want with lies" form of "journalism."

But we're not in a normal world, we're in Evil Clown World, we're in Marxist Will-to-Power World, we're in Orwell's World, so only right-leaning outlets are covering this.