by Damjan Tutarkov
LaCorte News
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin is set to take her defamation case against The New York Times to trial, a federal judge ruled on Friday.
Palin filed a defamation lawsuit against the Times in 2017 over an editorial that year she insists falsely accused her of “political incitement” leading up to the 2011 shooting of then-congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D).
The Times cited a link between an ad from Palin’s political action committee and the shooting but later issued a correction arguing that “no such link was established” between the ad and the shooting.
In his ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff that there is “sufficient evidence to allow a rational finder of fact to find actual malice by clear and convincing evidence.”