A protester who “meandered” around the Capitol building on January 6 after the riot filed a lawsuit against CNN, and a federal judge has made a decision.
U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen dismissed the case on Monday before it even went to trial, Newsweek reported.
Jacob Hiles, a charter boat captain from Virginia Beach, claimed that CNN defamed him in an online article released on October 15, 2021, concerning rioters at the Capitol building. The subheadline of the article said: “Man wanted to start ‘a revolution’ on January 6.”
According to an FBI affidavit, Hiles uploaded multiple videos and photos to his Facebook page on the day when supporters of then-President Donald Trump breached the Capitol building. Among these posts was a selfie he shared that morning, accompanied by the caption: “Feelin cute…might start a revolution later. IDK.” He was wearing a mask, ski goggles, and a shirt that said, “F**k Antifa.”
Hiles’ lawsuit claimed that the CNN subheading and the article’s contents were defamatory because “they falsely accuse Hiles of felonious criminal activity of which he was not charged or convicted, either directly or indirectly.”
Initially, he sought $37 million in compensatory damages but later increased it to $100 million.
Although Hiles was not directly engaged in the rioting, he pleaded guilty in September 2021 to one misdemeanor count of parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building on the day of the riot. In December 2021, he received a sentence of two years of probation, Newsweek noted.
In her ruling on Monday, the judge noted that following the riots, “hundreds to potentially thousands of other demonstrators who did not participate in or encourage the violent riots formed a line to the Capitol Building and walked, illegally, inside the building at approximately 2:50 p.m.” She said that most, including the plaintiff, “peacefully meandered through the Capitol Building for mere minutes…before exiting of their own volition.”
“Most, again including Plaintiff, did not commit violence or other crimes reflective of rioting or participating in an insurrection or coordinated effort to overthrow the U.S. government,” she wrote.
However, she argued that CNN had the right to report on the matters at hand. The plaintiff asserted that CNN had intentionally omitted the phrase “IDK” (“I Don’t Know”) from his post regarding the potential start of a revolution at the Capitol. His attorneys contended that CNN made this alteration to portray Hiles as genuinely intent on initiating action.
Wright Allen, in her ruling, noted that is the only change that CNN made — deleting the “IDK.”
She said, “This minor discrepancy is not sufficient to show that CNN abused the fair report privilege.”
“The phrase ‘IDK’ serves the same function in the post as the word ‘might’ and the term ‘feelin cute’—it tends to indicate that the poster may not be entirely serious about what he is saying. By retaining two of these softening terms, CNN’s abridgment maintains the essence of both the content and tone of the post and is thus substantially accurate and a fair abridgment,” she wrote.
In March, a federal judge ordered the release of a man sentenced to three years behind bars concerning actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol after the Supreme Court took up a case that could have affected his sentence and that of hundreds of others.
Kevin Seefried, a resident of Laurel, Del., was handed a felony conviction of obstructing an official proceeding. Furthermore, Seefried received a 12-month and 6-month sentence for misdemeanor charges.
According to the Department of Justice, Seefried and his son Hunter were among the first people to enter the Capitol during the January 6th insurrection. They were also photographed carrying a Confederate flag while inside.
The obstruction charge is at the center of the case that the nation’s highest court has taken up.
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