FBI Nominee Patel’s CNN Defamation Lawsuit Fails to Advance (1)

President Donald Trump’s FBI director pick, Kash Patel, failed to advance his defamation case against CNN because he couldn’t overcome the “exacting constitutional standards” that protect statements he challenged from two stories that ran on the broadcast network’s website in late 2020, a Virginia appeals court said.

A divided Virginia Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of Patel’s defamation suit on Tuesday. Writing for the majority, Judge Rosemarie Annunziata concluded that while Patel’s complaint contains many factual allegations that “we accept as true,” those detailed allegations target CNN generally, “and do not even attempt to ‘bring home’ the requisite ‘state ...