On Jan. 29, 2020, Alan Dershowitz, a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School who at that time was representing President Donald Trump during his first impeachment trial, appeared on the Senate floor to respond to questions about Trump allegedly pressuring Ukraine to support his reelection campaign. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, asked Dershowitz to reflect on the legality of quid pro quo agreements. Dershowitz offered a lengthy response, positing, among other things, that “[i]f a President does something which he believes will help him get elected—in the public interest—that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”
Dershowitz’s answer sparked something of a media frenzy as political commentators pushed back against what at least some believed was a “crazypants bonkers” legal argument. CNN dedicated multiple segments to the hearing that day and the next, repeatedly returning to – and repeatedly criticizing – Dershowitz’s remarks. In the following days, Dershowitz attempted to clarify his position, including through appearances on CNN, contending that his comments had been “misinterpreted” or quoted without important context. Ultimately, Dershowitz sued CNN over its coverage, alleging that the network and its anchors and contributors had defamed him by only sharing misleading clips of his statement.
A federal district court in Florida granted summary judgment to CNN, holding that Dershowitz had failed to establish that CNN acted with actual malice – that is, with intentional disregard for the truth. In August 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision, highlighting the Supreme Court’s famous 1964 ruling on defamation: New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.
Under Sullivan, the 11th Circuit explained, public figures like Dershowitz “cannot recover damages for defamation unless they prove that an untrue statement was made ‘with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.’” Dershowitz, it continued, had offered no such proof. According to the circuit court, even if “commentators did report incorrectly on Dershowitz’s statements, he has offered no evidence that they did so intentionally. If anything, the evidence shows that they believed in the truth of their reporting, and that they formed their opinions independently.”
In late December, Dershowitz asked the Supreme Court to take up his case and revisit Sullivan’s actual malice standard. Specifically, in his petition for review, he urges the justices to clarify whether “systematic omission of qualifying and limiting language from a plaintiff’s recorded statement constitutes proof of actual malice” and to consider limiting Sullivan’s application and/or modifying its evidentiary standards. As it stands, according to Dershowitz, “Sullivan’s actual-malice standard has devolved into near-absolute immunity for media defendants, even when they profoundly misrepresent verifiable public statements.”
Initially, CNN waived its right to respond to Dershowitz’s petition for review, but, in February, the court called for a response. In that brief, filed last month, the company asserts that Dershowitz has failed to account for the fact that Florida, where he filed his lawsuit, has incorporated the actual malice standard into its state defamation law, meaning that he would still lose under Florida law even if the court revisits and limits Sullivan’s holding. In any event, CNN continues, the court should not change Sullivan because it is “a cornerstone of modern constitutional law” that “was correctly decided in the first place.”
Dershowitz v. Cable News Network is expected to be considered by the justices for the first time during their private conference today.
