DeRay McKesson filed a lawsuit against Fox News‘s Jeanine Pirro in December 2017 over statements she made earlier in the year about him. But this week that lawsuit was thrown out.

The Hill reports on the Monday decision from a Manhattan Supreme Court judge:

The lawsuit by McKesson argued that Pirro offers “loud, caustic” opinion while on the air. The legal action stems from McKesson taking issue with Pirro for comments in [September] 2017 asserting that he had “directed” violence against an injured Baton Rouge, La., police officer. Pirro claimed she was only expressing an opinion that the injured officer, East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Deputy Nicholas Tullier, had the right to sue McKesson in arguing the activist and podcast host could be liable for the officer’s injuries. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Robert Kalish sided with Pirro, a former Westchester County (NY) District Attorney, who he stated was free to express her opinion while noting Pirro’s attorney had characterized her on-air presentation as “loud, caustic and hard hitting.”

He tweeted her at the time to “stop lying”:

.@JudgeJeanine, I was found not guilty & I didn't direct any violence. In fact, I was protesting the violence of the police. Stop lying. pic.twitter.com/c1D4SM0VlB — deray (@deray) September 29, 2017

The Hollywood Reporter recaps what Pirro said that sparked McKesson’s lawsuit:

Mckesson went to court in New York over Pirro’s words on the Sept. 29, 2017, edition of Fox & Friends. On the program that morning, Pirro discussed what had occurred a year earlier in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the legal aftermath. Specifically, the program showed video of a “Black Lives Matter” protest (an earlier one in Minnesota) before Steve Doocy questioned her about a case brought by a Louisiana police officer injured by a thrown rock and a judge’s determination that “Black Lives Matter” was not an entity that could be sued. Pirro also addressed a second case — one brought by Mckesson and other protesters who alleged civil rights violations on the part of the city after they were arrested. That latter case settled for $136,000. Thus, Pirro had to explain why the cop’s lawsuit failed while Mckesson and other “Black Lives Matter” protesters got money. “The problem is when you have federal judges who make decisions based on politics — activist judges — and not on the facts,” said Pirro on television. “You’ve got a police officer who was injured, he was injured at the direction of DeRay Mckesson. Deray Mckesson walks away with $100,000 for an organization that is amorphous. We got a problem in this country.”

While this is certainly good news for Pirro, she is still contending with other issues. Fox News kept her off the air for a second straight week after controversial remarks she made about Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) hijab.

President Trump tweeted his support for Pirro on March 17th, and urged the network to bring her back.

———————————

—Sister Toldjah is a former liberal and a 15+ year veteran of blogging with an emphasis on media bias, social issues, and the culture wars. Read her Red State archives here. Connect with her on Twitter.–