In what appears to have been an attempt made over the summer to impugn President Donald Trump, CBS News published bad information that’s now poised to potentially cost it $20 million in damages.
While covering the vandalism occurring at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool over the summer, CBS News identified a detained 15-year-old Maryland teenager known as simply “JV” as one of the culprits.
But according to a lawsuit filed on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, “JV” was not, in fact, responsible for any vandalism.
“He was not arrested for vandalizing it,” the lawsuit states, as reported by Fox News. “He was not accused by law enforcement of vandalizing it.”
According to The Desk, the media-focused news site that first reported the lawsuit story, “JV” was riding an electric dirt bike near the pool on June 20 when he was briefly detained and handcuffed but soon after released without charges.
Despite “JV” being released without charges, CBS News ran a report the following day showing “JV” alongside the actual vandals, according to the lawsuit.
“CBS News broadcast and published a story to a national audience that placed JV’s image alongside the assertion that five people had been arrested for vandalizing and ‘sabotaging’ the Reflecting Pool, thereby falsely portraying JV as one of the perpetrators of a highly publicized federal crime,” the suit states.
