CNN Sides With Taliban in Jake Tapper Defamation Battle: Embattled News Network Claims Military Vet Who Saved 20 Women's Lives Broke Sharia Law, Demands Lawsuit be Tossed
The lawsuit may cost the network $1billion.
Aug. 4 2024, Published 4:27 a.m. ET
CNN has begged a judge to toss a bruising defamation lawsuit because it claims a U.S. military veteran violated Taliban law when he saved the lives of more than 20 innocent women.
Zachary Young, who served in the U.S. Navy before becoming a private security consultant, is suing the embattled news network over a 2021 report on The Lead With Jake Tapper that accused him of charging exorbitant prices as part of an illegal, “black-market” business to smuggle people out of Afghanistan following President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal.
In a filing obtained exclusively by RadarOnline.com, CNN astonishingly sided with the terrorist regime’s rule of law in its latest attempt to wriggle out of the billion-dollar courtroom showdown that has embroiled its star anchor Jake Tapper and correspondent Alex Marquart.
The lawsuit may cost the network $1billion.
In its motion for summary judgement, a last-ditch legal move to avoid a full-scale trial, the ratings-challenged CNN told a Florida judge Young’s “activities almost certainly were illegal under Taliban law.”
“Discovery has indicated that those activities he orchestrated and funded, which involved moving women out of Afghanistan, almost certainly were illegal under Taliban rule,” Deana Shullman, a lawyer for CNN, wrote.
Correspondent Alex Marquardt, who presented the story with Jake Tapper, allegedly referred to military veteran as 'f***ing Young' and said 'it’s your funeral bucko' in secret correspondence exposed as part of the case.
While the U.S. government does not recognize the Taliban or its interpretation of Sharia law, CNN claimed the terrorist’s regime should be considered in its defense of the lawsuit.
The radical Islamist group advocates for public executions, amputations, stonings, floggings and is widely considered an abuser of human rights.
The terrorist organization, responsible for the slaughter of 2,459 U.S. military personnel, also believes in the systematic segregation of women, sometimes referred to as gender apartheid.
They also mandate women are not allowed to work, nor should they be allowed to be educated after the age of eight.
Marquardt followed up by saying 'desperate Afghans are being exploited' and need to pay 'exorbitant, often impossible amounts' to flee the country. He singled out Young and his company, using a picture of his face on screen, as an example.
Despite this, CNN, in its court motion, cited their hardline law as the basis for its demand the court battle be shut down — a confrontation that has exposed secret trove of expletive-laden communication and an admission the story about Young was “full of holes like Swiss cheese” and "not ready for primetime".
A spokesperson for CNN defended its latest legal manoeuvre filed at the eleventh hour and prior to settlement talks, telling RadarOnline.com: “Acknowledging the state of local law is a necessary part of the legal analysis.”
Young saved at least 20 women’s lives and charged $14,500 a piece for their evacuation for his clients which were exclusively corporations, previous court filings revealed.
But CNN said its report about Young was not defamatory because it was about profiteers taking advantage of the chaos in Afghanistan to charge prices that Afghans could not afford.
CNN hired two new lawyers to beef up its legal team ahead of the civil trial.
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The story, presented by Marquart, its chief national correspondent, was substantially the truth, CNN argued.
“All of the journalism at issue in this case arose out of the events of August 2021, when the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan, leading the Taliban to take control of the country and ban women from leaving,” CNN said in the August 1 filing.
“Because thousands of women faced possible execution or enslavement at the hands of the new government, the Afghans’ desperation to escape spawned a brief window — approximately two and a half months — of exploitable economic opportunity."
CNN added: “Young’s company, Nemex, suddenly found itself rapidly making a ton of money, and in turn, Young—lined his pockets at an astounding rate. Yet Young didn’t personally evacuate anyone. Instead, at all relevant times, he sat at his computer in Vienna, acting as a middleman to another middleman, overseeing evacuations carried out by unknown people half a world away.
“Young could not guarantee the success of any evacuation because he literally did not know what the people on his payroll were doing. He even left some would-be evacuees stranded, scrambling for alternatives, and demanding refunds.”
Claims made on Tapper's CNN show in 2021 have led to legal repercussions.
CNN said Young had acknowledged the Taliban was the sole government of Afghanistan when he undertook the dangerous, people-saving operations.
“One of the Taliban’s most prominent policy changes was to prohibit women from traveling and leaving the country,” CNN said.
“As Plaintiff’s own expert, Gen. (James) Young, explained, ‘the Taliban imposed rules on females’ that made leaving Afghanistan against the law, which meant that those who tried to escape without the Taliban’s permission faced ‘grave, grave danger.’
“To get women out, the operators on the ground were required either to break the law directly or to find someone to break the law for them.
“For those reasons, the private evacuation market in which Young operated was, as Young’s own expert conceded, premised on ‘avoiding the Taliban,’ ‘mak[ing] it past the Taliban checkpoints,’ and keeping ‘people hidden from the Taliban’ — i.e., all activities that were illegal in Afghanistan at the time.
“As is typical in illegal black markets, private operators pocketed massively inflated prices in exchange for assuming the risk of being caught by the law, permitting Young to earn at a rate significantly higher than he ever had before.
“All of that leads to the unmistakable conclusion that Young and the other private operators in Afghanistan were, in fact, operating in an illegal market.”
President Joe Biden said he stands 'squarely' behind the US exit from Afghanistan as he faced withering criticism over the Taliban taking over the war-torn country.
But in a sign of CNN’s desperation to end the ugly spat with Young, after doubling down on the claims at the center of the case, it is also hedged its bets in a spectacular backflip.
In another argument as part of the filing, the network claimed it “intended only to convey that the market for private evacuation services in Afghanistan was unregulated, not that it was characterized by illegality.”
“Contrary to what Young has asserted, the focus of CNN’s journalism was never on whether what Young and other private operators were doing was illegal under Taliban law,” the network said.
“Rather, the focus was on how bad actors — war profiteers such as Young — were taking advantage of the desperation of Afghans and the chaos in the country to demand prices for evacuations far beyond what Afghans could afford.
“That is what CNN journalists believed about Young and his business at the time — and still do. That is what CNN reported. And, that is what discovery in this case has proved, beyond any material question of fact, to be true.”
It added: “But even if Young is right that CNN accused him of illegal conduct — which CNN vigorously disputes — he still cannot prevail on his claims.
“The activities Young directed and funded almost certainly were illegal under Taliban law, as the Taliban prohibited Afghans (especially woman) from exiting the country without permission and vastly restricted their movement inside the country.
“Young's own actions, in fact, indicate that he believes the evacuations he directed and funded were likely illegal."
CNN asked a Florida judge to sensationally block Jake Tapper from being interrogated about his involvement in a controversial story the embattled network aired.
CNN has asked the judge to enter a judgement in its favor and dismiss the case because “with the benefit of full discovery, it is clear that Young cannot prevail on his claims.”
If successful, it would end months of embarrassing headlines about the case for the controversy prone network, including Marquart’s admission he had “no evidence” to support linking Young to the black market trade of refugees, alleged destruction of evidence, please to shield Tapper from sitting a deposition,
Young, for his part, has vowed to take the case all the way to trial.