'Uniquely unfit': Alan Dershowitz's 'alternate universe of facts' conveniently ignores that he lost defamation case

Source: Law & Crime

Apr 18th, 2026, 8:24 am


Famed criminal defense attorney and law professor Alan Dershowitz was already a "uniquely unfit" person to "force a constitutional showdown" over the First Amendment, but the truth is he's lost his defamation case "no matter what," CNN told the Supreme Court on Friday.

The brief in opposition urged the justices to see Dershowitz's "real complaint" — that pundits on CNN and elsewhere "misinterpreted" his Ukraine impeachment defense of President Donald Trump in 2020 — "simply is not an actionable defamation claim," let alone a "vehicle" for overturning the landmark 1964 precedent set by New York Times v. Sullivan.

Pointing out that several other media outlets contemporaneously interpreted his remarks similarly and that the network had Dershowitz on air twice after he "complained about the coverage," CNN's lawyers with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and Davis Wright Tremaine LLP said SCOTUS should reject the proposed "drastic curtailment of the press's and public's freedom to discuss the President's arguments for remaining in the highest office in the land."

"[H]e loses under any evidentiary standard because he had no evidence," the brief said, and "his claims masquerade opinions and interpretations as statements of fact.". "Dershowitz cannot paper over these flaws," CNN continued.

Read more: https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/cnn-to-scotus-dershowitz-defamation-lawsuit-is-living-in-alternate-universe-of-facts/