Jake Tapper speaks before the first of two Democratic presidential primary debates hosted by CNN Tuesday, July 30, 2019, in the Fox Theatre in Detroit (AP Photo/Paul Sancya).
A Navy veteran who is suing CNN in a potentially high-dollar defamation case needs quite a bit more information from star anchor Jake Tapper, a motion recently filed in a Florida state court explains.
Attorneys for Zachary Young, the plaintiff, deposed Tapper last week as part of a court-authorized deep dive into the network’s financials.
During the 2-hour-long session, however, an attorney for CNN repeatedly shut down various lines of questioning by instructing Tapper not to answer, according to Young’s latest motion.
Now, the plaintiff is asking the court for one more hour in the hot seat with the anchor whose on-air program is at the center of the litigation.
Young is suing CNN in Bay County, Florida, over a 2021 segment that aired on “The Lead with Jake Tapper.” In the lawsuit, Young claims the network falsely painted him as an “illegal profiteer” exploiting “desperate Afghans” with “exorbitant” extraction fees amid the fallout of President Joe Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
So far, two judges in two states — Florida and Delaware — have ordered CNN and their parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, to turn over a bevy of financial information. Those rulings amount to a marked loss for the network in a case where punitive damages could potentially make a Young victory quite expensive for the defendants.
In an August order, Florida 14th Judicial Circuit Court Judge William Henry gave Young’s attorneys a 2-hour opportunity to quiz Tapper under oath about “limited issues related to finances and what financially could penalize his show or CNN related to his show and the issues” in the case, the 11-page motion to compel explains.
But things did not go as planned for the plaintiff.
To hear Young’s attorneys tell it, CNN’s counsel, in an “egregious” manner, gave Tapper “improper instructions” to withhold information relevant to the case on numerous occasions.
“In the course of less than two hours, CNN’s counsel directed Tapper not to answer more than thirty questions,” the motion reads. “The end result was that CNN prevented Plaintiffs from (1) gathering basic financial information (e.g., Tapper’s salary); (2) exploring issues the jury might need to assess a punitive damages award (e.g., Tapper’s opinion on what financial penalty might deter CNN from future misconduct); and (3) from even asking for clarification of Tapper’s answers or getting complete answers to the questions the witness did answer.”
Young’s attorneys say the interjections by CNN were out-of-bounds.
“In another instance, CNN’s counsel cut Tapper off mid-sentence to stop him from testifying about something CNN didn’t want him to, despite the issue not being privileged,” the filing reads at one point.
In the filing, several passages from a rough transcript of the deposition are included — but redacted. Young’s attorneys suggest this is because “CNN has designated the entire transcript Highly Confidential.” The plaintiffs say this action by CNN is “an improper designation” that they intend to challenge at a later date.
While redaction boxes take up the better part of six pages in the filing, the context provided aims to show that “CNN’s counsel obstructed” Tapper from answering questions on numerous occasions and that “obstruction continued even as the questions grew more specific.”
The motion to compel offers an example of how granular the objections became as the deposition went on (emphasis in original):
Trying to find something CNN’s counsel would not object to, Plaintiffs tried keeping as close to the Court’s instruction about permitting questions related to “what financially could penalize his show or CNN related to . . . the issues in this case.” Order at 59:19-22. But CNN obstructed that questioning, too, arguing (nonsensically) that tying the financial penalty questions to allegations of CNN’s misconduct in this case violated the Court’s prohibition on asking questions about “what went into putting the piece together before it ran.”
Young’s attorneys say that Tapper himself would sometimes provide information they intended to follow up on — but insist that those efforts became something not entirely unlike an impossible errand as CNN’s counsel chimed in.
“During the deposition, Tapper would at times respond with answers injecting topics or issues into the deposition. When counsel tried to follow up on those answers, or seek clarity or further explanation of them, CNN’s counsel objected,” the motion goes on. “Another example occurred when Tapper injected comments made before the deposition commenced into the deposition. When Plaintiffs asked for clarification and follow up, CNN instructed Tapper not to respond, prejudicing Plaintiffs from making a full record for the jury.”
Young, a U.S. citizen who lives in Austria and is the president of Florida-based corporation Nemex Enterprises, is suing for CNN defamation per se, defamation by implication, group libel and trade libel, claiming that his efforts to save lives in Afghanistan as a security consultant were distorted by “lies published for sensationalism.”
Inset: Zachary Young. Main: A court exhibit highlights the chyron from the Nov. 11, 2021 CNN segment at issue (court documents).
The segment at issue, which aired on Nov. 11, 2021, and featured correspondent Alex Marquardt’s reporting on Tapper’s show, displayed a photo of Young over chyrons that read: “AFGHANS TRYING TO FLEE TALIBAN FACE BLACK MARKETS, EXORBITANT FEES, NO GUARANTEE OF SAFETY OR SUCCESS” and “AFGHANS AND ACTIVISTS REPORT DEMANDS OF $10K-$14K FOR ATTEMPTS TO GET FAMILY MEMBERS OUT OF COUNTRY.”
CNN has since tried and failed to prevent Young from amending his lawsuit to request likely costly punitive damages, failed to keep Tapper from being deposed in the first instance, failed to prevent the release of embarrassing internal messages, and, failed to keep the trial court from signing off on an “expansive” financial spelunking trip.
Earlier this month, a judge in Delaware directed additional discovery in the plaintiff’s favor; Young filed a separate action there because Warner Bros. Discovery is incorporated there.
For his part, Tapper will not be a witness during the upcoming trial — which is currently slated to begin on Jan. 6.
And that lack of an otherwise key witness, Young says, makes one more deposition all the more important.
“Plaintiffs ask the Court for an order compelling Mr. Tapper to sit for another 1-hour deposition and to answer the questions he was instructed not to,” the motion reads. “Plaintiffs respectfully request the Court compel CNN to produce Mr. Tapper for one additional hour, order him to respond to questions aimed at punitive damages discovery, and permit reasonable follow up and clarification from Tapper’s answers.”
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