MAGA teen Nick Sandmann launches $350 million defamation suit against The Washington Post

The student at the centre of a viral video controversy has launched a $350m defamation case against the Washington Post.

A still from the viral footage of the encounter between US student Nick Sandmann and Native American Nathan Phillips. Picture: Supplied

A high school student in the United States who was at the centre of a viral video controversy has launched a $350 million defamation case against the Washington Post.

The complaint was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky by well-known defamation lawyer L. Lin Wood on behalf of Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann.

“In order to fully compensate Nicholas for his damages and to punish, deter, and teach the Post a lesson it will never forget, this action seeks money damages in excess of $US250 million ($AU350 million) — the amount Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, paid in cash for the Post when his company, Nash Holdings, purchased the newspaper in 2013,” the complaint says.

16-year-old Sandmann was on a school trip to Washington to attend an annual March for Life rally and was wearing a red ‘Make American Great Again’ hat when he was confronted by Nathan Phillips, a Native American activist, who was attending an Indigenous Peoples March.

A video of the encounter sparked a heated debate and made headlines around the world.

Sandmann was filmed standing silently smiling as 64-year-old Omaha elder Nathan Phillips banged a drum and sang just inches away. Sandmann was slammed for bigotry as Phillips claimed in multiple media interviews that he “felt threatened” as the teens surrounded and racially harassed him.

Extended video of the incident soon surfaced and debunked Phillips’ claims — revealing that it was Phillips who approached the group of students as they waited to catch a bus after attending the rally.

The students had begun a school chant to drown out verbal abuse from nearby members of the Black Hebrew Israelites hate group, who were taunting the students from Covington Catholic High School, calling them “incest babies” and “future school shooters”.

The complaint alleges “the Post engaged in a modern-day form of McCarthyism by competing with CNN and NBC, among others, to claim leadership of a mainstream and social media mob of bullies which attacked, vilified, and threatened Nicholas Sandmann, an innocent secondary school child”.

It added, “The Post ignored basic journalist standards because it wanted to advance its well-known and easily documented, biased agenda against President Donald J. Trump by impugning individuals perceived to be supporters of the President”.

The suit claims the newspaper “bullied” Sandmann in its reporting “because he was the white, Catholic student wearing a red ‘Make America Great Again’ souvenir cap”, while calling Phillips “a phony war hero [who] was too intimidated by the unruly Hebrew Israelites to approach them, the true troublemakers, and instead chose to focus on a group of innocent children”.

The lengthy complaint, alleged seven “false and defamatory” articles published online or in print by The Post as well as citing tweets sent by The Post to promote its stories.

The complaint added that The Post “did not conduct a proper investigation before publishing its false and defamatory statements of and concerning Nicholas”.

It also accused The Post of ignoring online videos that provided greater context by showing a fuller picture of the incident and of using “unreliable and biased sources,” thereby acting with knowledge of falsity or a reckless disregard for the truth”.

As a result, it says, Sandmann suffered “permanent harm to his reputation”, will continue to suffer “severe emotional distress” and is “forced to live his life in a constant state of concern over his safety and the safety of his family”.

Kristine Coratti Kelly, vice president of communications at The Washington Post, said in response to the suit, “We are reviewing a copy of the lawsuit, and we plan to mount a vigorous defence”.