Supreme Court rejects Dershowitz defamation bid against CNN

The Supreme Court turned away Alan Dershowitz’s bid to revive his $300 million defamation suit against CNN on Monday, leaving in place a lower-court ruling that rejected the claim because Dershowitz did not show actual malice. The brief, unexplained order closed a petition that reached the court after Justice Clarence Thomas granted Dershowitz extra time to file in November 2025.

The denial did not endorse CNN’s coverage. It simply left standing the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals’ judgment, which affirmed summary judgment for CNN after the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida found no evidence that the network knowingly published falsehoods or recklessly disregarded the truth. The court routinely disposes of petitions by unsigned orders without comment.

The lawsuit arose from CNN’s coverage of Dershowitz’s remarks during Donald Trump’s first Senate impeachment trial in January 2020, when Dershowitz was on the president’s defense team in the United States Senate. CNN portrayed the comments as suggesting a president could do essentially whatever he wanted to win reelection; Dershowitz said the network clipped his answer and distorted its meaning. Under New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the 1964 precedent governing public-figure defamation cases, Dershowitz had to prove actual malice, a burden the Eleventh Circuit said he failed to meet because the evidence pointed to reporters’ sincere, if mistaken, interpretations.

Dershowitz filed the petition on Dec. 29, 2025, CNN waived a response before later filing its opposition on April 17, 2026, and the case was distributed for conference on Feb. 20 and then distributed again on multiple later dates before the justices declined review. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented from the denial.