‘I’m tired of these blatant misrepresentations’: Judge blows up at CNN’s lead attorney during defamation case and says he owes Navy veteran ‘an apology’ for calling him a liar...

The Florida judge overseeing the high-stakes defamation case between a U.S. Navy veteran and CNN repeatedly lost his patience with lawyers for the parties on Wednesday morning.

Plaintiff Zachary Young, a security contractor who extracted people from Afghanistan, claims a November 2021 segment on “The Lead with Jake Tapper” falsely painted him as an “illegal profiteer” exploiting “desperate Afghans” with “exorbitant” fees amid the fallout of President Joe Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from the country.

“We don’t lawyer like this around here,” Fourteenth Judicial Circuit Court Judge William Henry admonished the attorneys at one point during the seventh day of proceedings during a discovery hearing. “We don’t play the shenanigans anymore in this case.”

While the ire emanating from the judicial perch in Bay County was admittedly reserved for both sides in the ongoing trial, the judge’s criticism was initiated by, and in the end seemed to largely target, CNN’s lead counsel David Axelrod.

“I can get the court reporter to read back exactly what you said,” the incensed judge told CNN’s lawyer — gesturing toward the municipal employee. “But I think I verbatim said exactly what you said.”

Axelrod attempted to clarify.

“Your honor, the point I’m trying to make —” he began before being cut off.

“I’m tired of these blatant misrepresentations that are being made,” Henry said, first shouting, then mocking. “And they’re being made by both of y’all. And maybe they’re not 100% lies. Maybe they’re leaving out a little bit of the truth. And making representations, so you can carefully say: ‘Well, I didn’t exactly say that.'”

The locus of the fracas was a discovery dispute away from jurors’ ears.

Earlier on Wednesday morning, Young’s attorney Devin “Vel” Freedman moved to reopen the plaintiff’s case. The plaintiff rested late Tuesday afternoon but argued that a document received late in the game necessitated one last presentation for the jurors.

The document at issue was a communication between Helios Global — a government contractor Young signed a consulting agreement with in 2021 — and CNN. The communication at issue came earlier this month — just days before the trial began.

More Law&Crime coverage: ‘You can think whatever you want’: Tense exchange between Jake Tapper and Navy veteran’s lawyer during deposition shown to jurors in CNN defamation trial

The defense previously argued the consulting agreement was proof the plaintiff had, in fact, been able to secure work after the allegedly defamatory CNN broadcast aired. The plaintiff, for his part, has argued the agreement was signed simply to maintain his security clearance and that no actual work resulted from his signature on that document.

In the document at issue on Wednesday, however, the contractor told the network that Young lost his security clearance in 2022.

“CNN knew that there was no security clearance in place,” Freedman said. “Something we didn’t know because we didn’t have this communication.”

The judge cut the plaintiff’s attorney off to clarify the source of the document — suggesting there was, at least in theory, a way Young might have been able to ascertain the status of his security clearance. Freedman conceded the minor point but not the broader one.

“Mr. Young’s testimony was the security clearance was through Helios Global,” the attorney began again. “That was the only evidence that there was a security clearance. CNN knew that that relationship ended; knew Mr. Young did not know that that relationship ended; had proof of it and failed to disclose it to the other side. And then put an expert on the stand to say he still has it.”

Defending CNN, Axelrod rose to argue that Young was trying “to get around” his own discovery obligations and said the plaintiff did, in fact, have access to the document in question.

More Law&Crime coverage: ‘Yeah, he’s a s–––’: Internal CNN communications showcased in defamation trial between Navy veteran and cable news network as senior employee takes the stand

This line of argument prompted the first judicial blow-up.

The judge, after lengthily upbraiding CNN’s attorneys, then took a break to read over the communications at the center of the dispute.

When court was back in session, the landscape became decidedly bleak for the network — particularly so for their lead attorney.

The judge first took CNN to task for the latest surprise:

I find it rich that we’ve got discovery being done at the same time a motion to quash is being filed; arguing that the plaintiffs are violating the rules by sending out trial subpoenas when the defense is doing the exact same thing; we have representations being made to the court that ‘we were just fortuitous to get this.’ It wasn’t fortuitous. It is you were doing the same thing the plaintiffs were doing: in sending a trial subpoena for documents without notice to the other side in violation of [a discovery rule] that y’all cited in a couple motions. And just saying that this just showed up in our lap.

Then the judge got to the heart of the matter:

You represent to me this morning: ‘We didn’t accuse him of anything — of having anything beyond a security agreement.’ But that was clearly the implication that was being made when we were arguing about the document because you wanted to impeach him with it. Despite the fact that he admitted to signing the security document. Then you changed it to: ‘We want to use it substantively.’ And it got admitted into evidence. … Had I known it’d been discovery being conducted after the deadline, there’s no way in hell that the document would have been admitted into evidence.

Next, the judge tore into Axelrod for the numerous times the attorney referred to the plaintiff as a liar — saying he did not know how many times the attorney had done so and threatening to consult the transcript. This soliloquy prompted a feeble protest from the defense and the mouth of one plaintiff’s lawyer to literally drop wide open.

“In his deposition, he acknowledged his security — his security being held by Helios Global,” Henry went on. “Which is exactly what that document is and exactly what he testified to. I think an apology, from you, is clearly in order, to Mr. Young, for the number of times in front of this court — and streamed around the world — that you called Mr. Young a liar for failing to disclose a document that wasn’t — that you have no proof was in his custody or control.”

The judge went on to muse about the attorneys fees being made by the lawyers in the years-long-pending case. Pulling on this same thread, the judge suggested the late-breaking discovery efforts by both sides were akin to “Kindergarten”-level antics not befitting attorneys with law degrees who passed the bar.

But, the both sides lecture was largely pro forma. The court brought the true complaints back home to CNN’s side again.

“I’m overly concerned with the level of professionalism or lack thereof that’s here,” Henry said — repeatedly accusing the defense of making misrepresentations. “Right now your credibility with me, Mr. Alexrod, is about none. If you understand that?”

In the end, the plaintiff received permission to introduce the surprise document and question a Helios Global representative about the document before the jury. The judge also reserved the right to issue sanctions related to the entire matter.

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/im-tired-of-these-blatant-misrepresentations-judge-blows-up-at-cnns-lead-attorney-during-defamation-case-and-says-he-owes-navy-veteran-an-apology-for-calling-him-a-liar/

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SEE ALSO: 

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZSmhN3glzI