MSNBC host Rachel Maddow may have cost the liberal network millions of dollars.
Along with colleagues Nicolle Wallace and Chris Hayes, Maddow is accused of making 39 “verifiably false” statements about a Georgia doctor they dubbed the “Uterus Collector.”
The hosts claimed that Dr. Mahendra Amin performed hysterectomies on women at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in 2020 based on a whistleblower account from a nurse named Dawn Wooten, who allegedly worked at the facility during the Trump Administration.
According to the 108 page summary Released by Judge Lisa Godbey Wood of the Southern District of Georgia, Maddow and her MSNBC colleagues gave an on-air report after NBC reporters first broke the story in September 2020 despite skepticism.
NBC-acclaimed journalists Jacob Soboroff and Julia Ainsley claimed Amin’s procedures were botched and unauthorized. However, court documents indicate the doctor performed only two hysterectomies, both of which were given the green light by ICE officials.
The plaintiff claims both women signed informed consent forms for their procedures, but NBC argued Amin performed the surgery without consent.
Maddow “initially questioned” NBC’s reporting, skeptical that the authors were “jumping to conclusions.” However, she covered the story anyway during her weekly news segment.
NBC also published an article alleging gynecological abuse at the center, which the plaintiff refutes.
Ben Osorio, the attorney for an ICDC detainee who had undergone a hysterectomy, told Ainsley that given “the allegations in the whistleblower report, (he) was questioning everything at that point.”
“It was not the first scandal of the Trump administration. It certainly, certainly, certainly was not the last,”“ Maddow opened her show on September 15, 2020, by providing comments about former President Donald From Trump “family separation policies and the then Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.“
“But the reason I’m bringing it up again tonight is because we’ve reached the next chapter of this same story. And I’m not going to beat around the bush. I’m just going to say it, and I guess we should have seen this coming, but still, it’s a shock.“ He continued before reporting on the Ainsley and Soboroff story.
According to court documents, NBC’s standards officer, Christopher Scholl, said the department “reviewed and approved the reports even though the nurse provided no evidence to support her claims.”“
“(The complainant) has no direct knowledge of what she claims, she cannot name the doctor involved (if I understand correctly), and we cannot verify anything or determine if there really is a story here,“ Scholl explained in an email: “Basically, it comes down to a single source, with one objective, telling us things that we have no basis to believe are true.”
Court documents revealed that Ainsley and Soboroff had doubts about the story despite publishing it.
“It doesn’t seem like they have much more than the complaint,“ Soboroff texted Ainsley in September.
Only two hysterectomies?“ Ainsley reportedly responded.
Still, NBC reporters published the article. noble, Lawyers denounce abuse of migrant women by gynecologist at ICE detention center in Georgia“ the next day.
The judge ruled that “there is indisputable evidence that establishes“ and “no mass hysterectomies or large numbers of hysterectomies were performed at the center.”
“The Court must examine each statement in the context of the entire broadcast or social media post to assess the interpretation given to it by the average viewer,“ The judge wrote: “Viewed in their entirety, the September 15, 2020 episodes of ‘Deadline: White House,‘ ‘All inclusive with Chris Hayes,‘ and ‘The Rachel Maddow Show’ accuse the plaintiff of performing mass hysterectomies on women in custody. Never mind that NBC did not make these accusations directly, but merely republished the allegations from the whistleblower’s letter. If the accusations against a plaintiff are “based entirely on hearsay,‘ “The fact that the charges were based on hearsay evidence does not in any way exempt the accused from liability. Charges based on hearsay evidence are equivalent in law to direct charges.” “
