CHARLESTON — Don Blankenship has refiled a lawsuit against NBC Universal and CNBC alleging they defamed him on television and on the Internet, constantly calling him a convicted felon.
Blankenship also included 50 unknown and unnamed individuals in the suit, which was filed April 20 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. The defendants had been named previously in Blankenship lawsuit, but a federal judge dismissed them because they had not been served in a timely manner.
"The mainstream media and much of the political establishment today routinely, and with actual malice, sets out to destroy public figures with outright lies," the complaint states. "The competition for viewers is intense and nothing brings in eyeballs like scandal and degradation. So too is the establishment media’s bloodthirsty desire to destroy those with whom they disagree politically."
Blankenship claims during the 2018 election cycle, when he was running as a Republican for U.S. Senate, he was constantly dragged through the mud by Democrats, as well as other Republicans, such as U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who Blankenship alleges would tell everyone that Blankenship "had to be stopped at all costs."
"McConnell set in motion the wheels of a clandestine campaign — including a 'menu of items' — to destroy Mr. Blankenship and blatantly interfere in a federal election, using among other things, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and his contacts in the establishment media, including Fox News in particular, to do McConnell’s (and in turn, the NRSC’s) bidding," the complaint states.
Blankenship claims liberal media companies also set out to destroy him, constantly calling him a convicted felon and saying he had been imprisoned for manslaughter.
Blankenship claims he never was a felon and has never been convicted of a felony, neither manslaughter nor any other. He claims media agencies attacked him throughout the election cycle and he lost his bid to be the Republican nominee. He claims the defendants continued to smear him even after the election.
"Mr. Blankenship was damaged by Defendants’ statements placing him in a false light before the public in an amount to be proven at trial, but which exceeds the jurisdictional minimum of this Court," the complaint states.
Blankenship is seeking compensatory and punitive damages. He is represented by Jeffrey S. Simpkins of Simpkins Law; and Eric P. Early, Jeremy Gray and Kevin S. Sinclair of Early Sullivan Wright Gizer & McRae.
Blankenship has filed several lawsuits against media companies for their actions. In March, District Just John Copenhaver agreed to dismiss several defendants in one of his cases but refused to dismiss the defamation claims against another 20 media outlets.
In that case, which lists ABC, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, the Charleston Gazette-Mail and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, among others, because of the constant statements that he was a felon.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia case number: 2:20-cv-00278