Mark Robinson sues CNN for $50 million over article revealing porn forum comments 

RALEIGH, N.C. (CN) — Mark Robinson, the Republican lieutenant governor of North Carolina, is suing CNN after it published an article claiming Robinson made disturbing posts on pornography forums over a decade ago.

The suit filed Tuesday morning in state court names CNN and a North Carolina musician who claims Robinson frequented porn stores.

CNN reported in September that Robinson posted on porn forums in the late 2000s calling himself a “Black Nazi” and supporting the reintroduction of slavery. He also said he enjoyed transgender pornography and secretly peeped on women in gym showers as a teen. Robinson denies that he made the posts.

Louis Love Money, the news outlet’s co-defendant, made a music video in August in which he claims Robinson owes him money for producing a porn video. Money later told The Assembly that Robinson was a frequent customer of porn stores in the 1990s and early 2000s.

In his lawsuit Robinson says he did not rent or preview videos and claims Money’s release of the video was timed to harm his campaign.

Robinson, who hired law firm Binnall Law Group in late September, called CNN’s reporting a “high-tech lynching” and released a video insisting he has been completely transparent in his candidacy.

Attorney Jesse Binnall on Tuesday reiterated Robinson’s stance that stories are false.

“Defamatory speech is not free speech,” Binnall said. “You do not have the right to go around lying about people, you do not have the right to go maliciously attack people with falsehoods in order to affect an election.”

Robinson claims CNN got its information from data breach files and has refused to turn over their source material to his campaign or redact the story. CNN should have known that archives from websites like NudeAfrica were unreliable, he says, and the news outlet disregarded that his passwords, emails and personal data had been stolen.

Politico released a story following CNN’s reporting that the person using the account on porn forum NudeAfrica accessed the site from the tri-city area near Robinson’s home. Politico, which also reported that Robinson had an Ashley Madison account, received Robinson’s user information from a computer scientist at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The lieutenant governor also said the NudeAfrica site shut down its forum after the CNN article went live and deleted all messages from the account, removing evidence and making it more difficult for him to investigate.

Because he is a public figure, Robinson has to prove the defendants acted with actual malice in order to successfully make a defamation case. Binnall said Tuesday that he expects to uncover more evidence in discovery that CNN intended to interfere with the gubernatorial election.

Robinson is running for governor against Attorney General Josh Stein. Early voting in the state begins Thursday and runs through Nov. 2.

Fellow Republicans have pressured Robinson to provide evidence that the allegations are false. His running mate Hal Weatherman called on Robinson in September to disprove the allegations quickly, calling the comments highly disturbing. U.S. Senator Thom Tillis also said Robinson should take immediate legal action, giving him a deadline of Sept. 27.

Robinson has said he has no plans to bow out of the race. The deadline to withdraw has passed.

Several of his top campaign staffers quit the weekend after the news went live, followed by over half of his staff at the lieutenant governor’s office.

Robinson has continued making campaign appearances, but the Republican Governors Association, which had been running ads against Stein, has not paid for any additional ads after CNN’s reporting went public. The group previously spent over $15 million on ads for the governor’s race.

After CNN’s reporting Robinson also dropped dramatically in polls, in what was previously a competitive race. A poll by East Carolina University in late September now has Stein leading 50% to Robinson’s 33%. Robinson’s support has dropped among Republicans; he now has the support of just 65% of them, compared to a pre-article poll where 83% of GOP respondents said they supported him.

Robinson has come under fire in the past for antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ comments and for being vocally anti-abortion despite his wife having had one. He was first thrust into the limelight in 2018 after making a speech in favor of gun rights at a city council meeting. His policies include investments in infrastructure, supporting agriculture and reducing taxes.

CNN declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Money said he’s not concerned about the suit and hopes it results in the music video getting a few more thousand views on YouTube.

Reached for comment Tuesday, he said, “How are you going to sue somebody for telling the truth?”

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