[Baldwin:] This next story serves as an important testament to something we've said over and over and over this year. Facts matter. A State Department employee has just filed a defamation suit against Info Wars, the fringe website that has a reputation for peddling conspiracy theories. The suit alleges Info Wars and other far-right figures falsely suggested that Brennan Gilmore played a role in the Charlottesville terror attack as some sort of inside job. Why? Because Gilmore was in Charlottesville and obtained this video of the attack that killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer. With me to talk more about this is Oliver Darcy, CNN senior media reporter, and Sara Azari, a criminal defense attorney. So, Oliver, is the suit about redeeming his reputation?
[Oliver Darcy, Cnn Senior Media Reporter:] The State Department employee has certainly been very affected by this, these conspiracy theories. He told me he has lost friends over this and has received a slew of death threats, including a white envelope in the mail that had a mysterious powder, which turned out to be nothing. But you can imagine, he said it was a terrifying moment. But there's a larger thing he's trying to do here. He's trying to hold these media outlets accountable for their actions. He said the primary motivation was that he was trying to I'll read the statement: "The primary motivation was accountability and trying to confront what I consider to be an incredibly dangerous trend in our civil discourse, our democracy. And that is the widespread saturation these sites have and their unwillingness to go by traditional journalistic practices." He has a "Washington Post" op-ed today calling Alex Jones, the founder of Info Wars, a menace to society. And I don't see him letting up anytime soon.
[Baldwin:] Aren't defamation lawsuits tough to prove or what do you think of this?
[Sara Azari, Criminal Defense Attorney:] He has to prove that the statements made, that he was part of this deep-state conspiracy, were false and they were published. He won't have a problem with the publishing aspect of this. But he could have been Joe Shmoo, the bystander here, which is what he kind of was. He recorded this incident. It's in response to the fake news put out by the right that this was somehow in self-defense. His video I call videos the best evidence shows this was not self-defense. The was a Dodge vehicle that is ramming into a crowd of peaceful protesters. The fake news starts with the slew of right-wing defendants in this case. He's responding by tweeting out this video and really putting out the best evidence, which is the video of what really happened. You know, I agree with you that the lawsuit is about the bigger picture, that the right doesn't get to call everything they don't like fake news.
[Baldwin:] There was another lawsuit that we wanted to follow up on. The family of Seth Rich is suing FOX News for broadcasting false conspiracy theories about the death of their son. You've covered so much of this.
[Darcy:] Right. This is another lawsuit against FOX about the Seth Rich story. The family is suing, filed a lawsuit in federal court, saying they had a lot of emotional distress over FOX's story in May 2017, that FOX published the story that was peddling the conspiracy theory about their son's unsolved murder. We debunked it here at CNN within hours. But FOX, it took them seven days to retract that story. And now it seems it might actually cost them. The family says they went through emotional trauma. And the father told them, at one point, the story was actually almost as bad as their son's death. It just felt like that. FOX is being sued. And the interesting thing about this is that FOX, at the time they retracted the story, they said they're going to launch this investigation into what happened. It's been some time now, several, several months, FOX has never announced that action. And we don't know what happened, other than our own reporting. Oliver, thank you. Sara, do me a favor and stick around. I have to ask you about this story that I tried ready about twice today. As the owner of a small dog, couldn't quite get through it. We'll get to that in just a second. First, do you see all these pictures on your screen? This is happening across the country. These walkouts by the thousands. Students from coast to coast are demanding change with our nation's gun laws. And the story I was just talking about. The United Airlines CEO in big trouble after a dog, this dog, dies in an overhead bin during a flight. The family says they were forced to put their pet up there. How the airline is responding. Does the family have a case? We'll be right back.