Recently, a federal judge ruled that a defamation case brought against MSNBC can move forward after it was determined that network hosts, such as Rachel Maddow and Nicole Wallace, touted “verifiably false” statements about Dr. Mahendra Amin on air. As a result, Amin is suing the network for defamation regarding the misinformation that was spread about him by the left-leaning news network.
The controversy stems from reports in 2020 that Dr. Amin, who was an obstetrician-gynecologist working at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia, faced damning whistleblower accusations from a nurse in the facility. According to the allegations, Amin was performing unnecessary hysterectomies on migrant females who were detained in the facility.
Reports indicate that NBC correspondents Jacob Soboroff and Julia Ainsley investigated the matter to determine the authenticity of the accusations. Furthermore, the claims faced scrutiny from NBCUniversal’s standards department, but an article was published regardless. Despite the whistleblower claims never being proven true, MSNBC aired reports referring to Amin as the “uterus collector.”
U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood of the Southern District of Georgia, wrote a lengthy summary of the controversy in June, in which she stated, “NBC investigated the whistleblower letter’s accusations; that investigation did not corroborate the accusations and even undermined some; NBC republished the letter’s accusations anyway.”
Host Nicole Wallace was a substantial target of the lawsuit after it was determined she made “multiple statements” on air about Amin that were allegedly false. “We are following breaking news today. It’s about an alarming new whistleblower complaint that alleges, quote, high numbers of female detainees, detained immigrants, at an ICE detention center in Georgia received questionable hysterectomies while in ICE custody,” Wallace said during a broadcast.
Court documents also specify the allegations brought against Rachel Maddow, who covered the story on “The Rachel Maddow Show.” Reportedly, the host was initially skeptical about the claims against Amin, but decided to report on the topic anyway. Amin unsuccessfully requested that NBC retract statements made during four MSNBC broadcasts. Furthermore, investigation by the U.S. Senate could not uncover any evidencsupportingof the accusations against him.
The judge determined that “undisputed evidence has established” that “there were no mass hysterectomies or high numbers of hysterectomies at the facility,” adding that “Dr. Amin performed only two hysterectomies on female detainees from the ICDC,” dispelling the narrative that the doctor is a “uterus collector.” The judge added, “The Court must look to each of the statements in the context of the entire broadcast or social media post to assess the construction placed upon it by the average viewer,” the judge wrote.
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The judge further wrote, “Viewed in their entirety, the September 15, 2020 episodes of ‘Deadline: White House,’ ‘All In With Chris Hayes,’ and ‘The Rachel Maddow Show’ accuse Plaintiff of performing mass hysterectomies on detainee women. It does not matter that NBC did not make these accusations directly, but only republished the whistleblower letter’s allegations. If accusations against a plaintiff are ‘based entirely on hearsay,’ ‘[t]he fact that the charges made were based upon hearsay in no manner relieves the defendant of liability. Charges based upon hearsay are the equivalent in law to direct charges.’”
Watch Joe Rogan sound off on MSNBC below: