MSNBC personalities Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes face substantial legal trouble amid a defamation lawsuit brought against the network. Reports indicate that a jury trial will begin on April 22nd in Georgia, where both anchors will appear on the witness stand to be questioned on “verifiably false” statements they made during a 2020 segment.
The reports centered around the plaintiff in the lawsuit, Dr. Mahendra Amin, who alleged that his practice as an obstetrician-gynecologist was negatively impacted by MSNBC’s coverage after providing medical care for women in ICE custody at the Irwin County Detention Center. A whistleblower had contacted the network with a report that initially aroused suspicion from NBC’s standards department.
However, the network ran the unverified report while labeling Dr. Amin as the “uterus collector.” A legal filing states that the network portrayed the client as “an abusive, unethical, and dishonest physician who treated and operated on immigrant women in an abusive fashion, without consent, and motivated by profit instead of quality healthcare.”
Judge Lisa Godbey Wood of the Southern District of Georgia previously ruled that the case could move forward as a jury could reasonably find MSNBC guilty of malice. “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,” Judge Wood concluded.
Ultimately, it has been determined that 23 “false and defamatory” statements were made about Dr. Amin across numerous shows on the network. Aside from Maddow and Hayes, other personalities expected to testify include Nicolle Wallace, NBC News reporters Jacob Soboroff and Julia Ainsley, MSNBC producer Denis Horgan, senior director of stands and practices Mary Lockhart, deputy head of standards Chris Scholl, and others.
“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 past coverage of the story pertaining to Dr. Amin.
Furthermore, Ainsley joined the show to discuss the report. “Our new reporting, Nicolle, is based on conversations with four lawyers who represented clients in this facility over the past three years, and they’re able to really broaden this story out and explain why the whistleblower Dawn Wooten heard what she did. The lawyers tell us that they knew of women who were afraid to go to this doctor, and they identified him,” Ainsley said.
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“His name is Mahendra Amin,” the reporter added, directly calling out Dr. Amin on the program. “These women would be taken from the facility to his practice, some said that they came back bruised, that he was overly harsh, they called him abusive… there were women that were told they needed a hysterectomy because they had cancer.”
The news of the defamation suit against MSNBC follows CNN’s settlement of a defamation suit brought by Navy veteran Zachary Young. The private security contractor accused the network of harming his professional prospects after negatively portraying his business operations in 2021. CNN was ordered to pay $5 million in damages.