CNN is ordered to pay millions to Afghanistan military veteran Zachary Young for defamation

CNN has defamed an Afghan war veteran by falsely accusing him of running a ‘black market’ for evacuations in Afghanistan and must pay him $5 million in damages.

Jurors found the controversial network liable on Friday afternoon for defaming 49-year-old Zachary Young in a Florida courthouse.

Young, who has sued for $15 million, will take home even more cash than the amount awarded so far because damages are not taken into account.

Young is a U.S. Navy veteran turned security adviser who helped bring Afghan people to safety after President Biden’s disastrous 2021 withdrawal.

He was mentioned in a CNN segment that alleged private contractors were charging up to $14,000 for evacuations on the “black market.”

Young said he had never accepted money from Afghans in need of rescue and relied on sponsorship from companies and non-governmental organizations to help people flee.

Friday’s ruling further weakens CNN, just days before Trump’s inauguration for his second term as president.

The network has been grappling with declining ratings and promises from conservative lawmakers, including Trump himself, to crack down on what they claim is an unfair liberal bias.

The defamatory broadcast aired in November 2021 and began with Jake Tapper claiming that Afghans trying to flee the rising Taliban “face a black market full of promises, demands for exorbitant fees and no guarantee of safety or success.”

Tapper then turned to CNN’s chief security correspondent Alex Marquardt, claiming that an Afghan man in the US had found people on Facebook charging $10,000 to evacuate family members.

Marquardt claimed that “desperate Afghans are now being exploited” for “exorbitant and impossible” amounts of money.

It then showed a LinkedIn post from Zachary Young advertising his services.

Young filed a defamation lawsuit in 2022, successfully claiming that CNN damaged his reputation by lying about taking advantage of the withdrawal.

After being threatened by Young, CNN apologized, retracted and removed the clip from public view.

But in statements shown at the hearing, senior aides say the network should never have apologized to Young.

On Tuesday, two days before both sides’ closing arguments, the jury was shown a series of clips — three of which showed statements from CNN Executive Vice President of Editorial Virginia Moseley, Supervising Producer Michael Callahan and Senior Vice President of Washington Newsgathering Adam Levine. respectively.

They all said the same thing: they didn’t believe such an apology was necessary because Marquardt’s segment made no such accusation. The banner on the screen did.

The term “black market” was also used in the introduction to the report when it first appeared on “The Lead With Jake Tapper.”

“Generally speaking, no,” Moseley said in December 2023 when Young’s legal team asked if she agreed with the 2022 apology.

“The reason I disagree is because, as we’ve discussed before, I don’t have the negative connotation of ‘black market,’” she insisted, making her argument.

“So I’m not exactly sure, just like I wouldn’t, you know – I don’t view the black market in a negative connotation.

“I disagree with the correction,” she finished.

A few months earlier, in October, Callahan made a similar point, defining the “black market” as an “unregulated market” and not a disreputable market.

He argued that such a term was correctly applied to the situation that occurred in Kabul at the time, and that the term black market had no particular connotation.

When asked what he thought the term meant, he emphasized: “An unregulated market for goods or services.”

In June last year, Levine said the apology was made in hopes of quashing the “potential for a lawsuit,” while spending several minutes dodging questions about whether CNN believed Young’s concerns were “reasonable” enough to demand the apology.

“This was a decision made for legal reasons and the correction was issued at the direction of our legal department,” Levine said,

“So CNN believes the legal department’s decision was the right one for the company, as they are our legal department.”

When asked if a correction was necessary, he said, “At least our legal department thought so.”

‘It was a mistake based on the fact that Mr. Young felt and [Young’s attorney Vel Freedman] made it clear that this was how Mr. Young received it,” he further explained. “And they objected to that.”

CNN journalist Fuzz Hogan, a senior editor charged with fact-checking the report, said a few days earlier that he also disagreed that CNN should have apologized, repeatedly calling Brown’s apology a “correction.”

“I didn’t think the correction was necessary,” Hogan said while giving this testimony to the jury.

CNN correspondent Marquardt, the one who led the report on Young, said the same thing – before indicating he had no problems, the network eventually apologized.

CNN producer Michael Conte similarly said he “didn’t necessarily” agree with the apology, adding at one point, “I don’t believe [the report] was a mistake.’

Young, meanwhile, claims the report wrongly portrayed him as an “illegal profiteer” who exploited “desperate Afghans” with “exorbitant” fees – and detailed how he had advertised his services online for $14,500.