The New York Times has found itself on the wrong end of a defamation lawsuit brought by former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The immigration hardliner who was famously pardoned from a contempt of court misdemeanor by President Trump, accused the paper and editorial board member Michelle Cottle of a “maliciously calculated” effort to damage his reputation, stemming from an August 2018 article by Cottle celebrating Arpaio’s failed Senate run.
“While the Defamatory Article is strategically titled as an opinion piece, it contains several false, defamatory factual assertions concerning Plaintiff Arpaio,” the suit reads. “These false factual assertions are carefully and maliciously calculated to damage and injure Plaintiff Arpaio”
After becoming popular among Trump followers for his tough approach on crime as sheriff of Maricopa county, Arpaio attempted a run for Senate in Arizona but was defeated in the GOP primary earlier this year. In her piece, Cottle said it was good riddance to bad rubbish.
“For nearly a quarter-century, Sheriff Joe Arpaio was a disgrace to law enforcement, a sadist masquerading as a public servant,” she wrote. “His 24-year reign of terror was medieval in its brutality.”
The story went on to list many of Arpaio’s bare knuckle law enforcement approaches.
Per Cottle’s article, which Arpaio cited in full in his suit:
In addition to conducting racial profiling on a mass scale and terrorizing immigrant neighborhoods with gratuitous raids and traffic stops and detentions, he oversaw a jail where mistreatment of inmates was the stuff of legend. Abuses ranged from the humiliating to the lethal. He brought back chain gangs. He forced prisoners to wear pink underwear. He set up an outdoor “tent city,” which he once referred to as a “concentration camp,” to hold the overflow of prisoners. Inmates were beaten, fed rancid food, denied medical care (this included pregnant women) and, in at least one case, left battered on the floor to die.
A rep for the Times told TheWrap that the paper was prepared to “vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”
9 Times New York Times Editorial Made Everyone Freak Out
Bari Weiss: We're All Fascists Now
The New York Times opinion editor set the Internet ablaze after going after college students who she said were trying to shut down free speech. Critics pointed to Weiss mistakenly linking two fake ANTIFA Twitter accounts
MSNBC
David Brooks: 'Girl I Want Your Body'
New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks offered his spin on the MeToo movement in November. But his attempt to speak the language of sex and passion led him to write some lines like "girl I want your body" and "sex is a gold nugget" and the Internet went nuts.
Getty
Bret Stephens' "A Defense, of Sorts, for Harvey Weinstein"
The October, 2017 piece was actually titled "Weinstein and Our Culture of Enablers," but Stephens couldn't resist throwing in the trollish alternative headline see above into a tweeted description of the article -- which promptly precipitated an Internet meltdown
YouTube
David Brooks Urges "Respect to Gun Owners" After Parkland, Florida Massacre
David Brooks set passions aflame after urging "respect" for gun owners after 17 children were killed at a school shooting in Parkland, Florida. "So if you want to stop school shootings it's not enough just to vent and march. It's necessary to let people from Red America lead the way, and to show respect to gun owners at all points," he wrote.
Getty
Quinn "Been Friends with Various Neo-Nazis" Norton
The New York Times got more than they bargained for when they hired tech writer Quinn Norton. Almost immediately after the news was announced old tweets began to emerge including where Norton said she had "been friends with various neo-nazis" and used the N word. The Times cut her loose just hours after she was hired.
YouTube
Bari Weiss Attacks Aziz Ansari Accuser: 'I'll Get Crushed for This'
Weiss risked more wrath on the set of "Morning Joe" in January after blasting a woman who accused comedian Aziz Ansari of sexual misconduct. "It's called bad sex," she told Joe and Mika. "I'll get crushed for saying this."
TheWrap
Bari Weiss Quotes Hamilton: 'Immigrants: We Get the Job Done"
Anti-Weiss Internet mobs were set ablaze after she tweeted out "Immigrants: we get the job done," in response to Olympian Mirai Nagasu's triple axel. Nagasu was born in California to immigrant parents and Twitter furiously dragged her for not paying sufficient deference to the decision.
Getty
James Bennet Diversifies the Times Opinion Pages
Editorial Page Editor James Bennet has said his mission is to broaden editorial diversity on the Times newsroom. The initiative has often been rocky and the paper has been beset by online criticism of hiring choices, and targeted leaks by Times employees unhappy with his changes.
YouTube
David Brooks Sandwich-Shames Less Educated Friend
Perhaps most egregious of all in the mind of Internet warriors was Brooks' confession in a July, 2017 column that he once took a friend "with only a high school degree" into a gourmet sandwich shop but decided to pull a quick switch for Mexican food after, so he said, she appeared overwhelmed by words like Soppressata and Capicollo.
Creative Commons
1 of 9
Most of the recent fire and fury comes from the paper’s editorial pages
Bari Weiss: We're All Fascists Now
The New York Times opinion editor set the Internet ablaze after going after college students who she said were trying to shut down free speech. Critics pointed to Weiss mistakenly linking two fake ANTIFA Twitter accounts