CNN settles lawsuit with Covington Catholic student: report

CNN on Tuesday reportedly settled its lawsuit with Nick Sandmann, the Covington Catholic High School student whose interaction early last year with Omaha Tribe elder Nathan Phillips at the Lincoln Memorial went viral.

Phillips was participating in an Indigenous Peoples March in Washington last January, while Sandmann and several of his classmates were visiting for the March for Life.

Sandmann, who was wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat in video of the incident, sued the network for $275 million in May over its reporting, saying CNN was “vilifying and bullying him” and had twisted the story to fit an anti-Trump agenda. In total, Sandmann was seeking $800 million in damages from The Washington Post, NBC and CNN. 

The amount of the settlement with CNN was not made public at a hearing in Covington, Ky., according to a local Fox affiliate.

“CNN was probably more vicious in its direct attacks on Nicholas than The Washington Post. And CNN goes into millions of individuals’ homes,” Lin Wood, one of Sandmann’s attorneys, told Fox News’s Mark Levin last year.

Sandmann also reportedly plans to sue Phillips as well as news organization Gannett over the reporting of The Cincinnati Enquirer.

Trial dates for the claims against the Post and NBC have not been set.