In 2020, MSNBC talking heads had a story too good to check. It combined advocacy for illegal immigration and allegations of horrendous governmental abuse of illegal immigrant women, a Democrat/socialist/communist (D/s/c) twofer, until it blew up in NBC’s face:
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Graphic: MSNBC Screenshot
NBCUniversal has agreed to settle a $30 million defamation suit filed by a Georgia gynecologist after on-air talents – including Rachel Maddow – falsely labeled him a ‘uterus collector.’
Dr. Mahendra Amin sued in September 2021 after NBCU hosts like MSNBC’s Maddow reported claims he performed ‘mass hysterectomies’ on ICE center detainees with impunity – allegations that later turned out to be false.
Documents filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Georgia Thursday show how MSNBC’s parent has since agreed to settle – with talks about a number now underway.
Settlements are common in civil suits. In many cases it makes sense to settle to avoid ridiculously high legal costs and general embarrassment, but that holds true only if the settlement amount is relatively small. That’s not going to be true in this case, and NBC surely didn’t want their malicious internal communications revealed in public, not after this:
‘The parties are diligently working to finalize the language of the settlement agreement,’ a notice stated, after a Georgia judge already ruled that Maddow, Chris Hayes and Nicole Wallace all made ‘verifiably false’ statements about the doctor.
Maddow, Hayes and Wallace weren’t alone in defaming Amin:
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Graphic: Nicole Wallace (L) & Dwan Wooten (R). MSNBC Screenshot.
NBC News correspondents Jacob Soboroff and Julia Ainsley also contributed to the reporting, stating the gynecologist, who had been working in a Georgia immigration facility, performed ‘mass hysterectomies’ on women even when unnecessary.
Even these five reporters and anchors weren’t alone. Numerous producers and editors were also involved. The false reports were based on the testimony of Dawn Wooten, a nurse, who eventually admitted she made it all up. That, of course, didn’t stop MSNBC.
‘When I met all these women who had had surgeries, I thought this was like an experimental concentration camp,’ Maddow said during her September 2020 broadcast on Amin’s practice, quoting detainees and Wooten at their word.
‘The nurse says she and her fellow nurses, quote, questioned among ourselves like, “Goodness – he’s taking everybody’s stuff out. That’s his specialty, he’s the uterus collector.
‘”He’s taking all their uteruses out or he’s taking their tubes out.” [skip]
‘I should tell you that these allegations from this whistleblower [Wooten] are not isolated,’ she added.
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Graphic: Chris Hays, MSNBC Screenshot
Maddow also claimed NBC spoke with four lawyers who represented women at the ICE facility in Ocilla, Georgia, saying they made “similar claims.” Hays “teased his interview with Wooten as ‘shocking whistleblower allegations of atrocities at an ICE detention center.” The overall theme of the false broadcasts was Amin performed innumerable unnecessary hysterectomies on immigrant women.
Discovery revealed Wooten’s information was all hearsay. She had no direct knowledge of any hysterectomy. Discovery revealed this as well:
Before the claims from the single mother were found to be false, Chris Scholl, NBCUniversal’s deputy director of standards, questioned the veracity of the lawsuit.
‘The guy has a pretty clean record,’ Scholl said of Amin during a conference call with Hayes the day after both broadcasts, according to notes released in the since-settled filing.
Scholl added how Wooten ‘has no direct knowledge of this stuff’ and could ‘have a beef’.
‘We just don’t know if any of this is true,’ the filing credited him as saying, while revealing that he openly declared that he ‘had no idea whether Wooten’s claims were accurate, and whether or not Amin was a “a good doctor or a shitty doctor.”
‘We don’t know the facts here,’ Scholl continued – to which a listening Hayes replied: ‘Right, right, right, right.’
In response, Hayes added how both he and Maddow ‘initially questioned reporting on the allegations,’ and suggested there was a lot of ‘jumping to conclusions around the complaint’.
There were more, equally deadly, revelations which, with the judge’s finding of multiple lies, obviously convinced NBC to settle for what is going to be a substantial sum.
In the hazy mists of the past, news organizations wouldn’t run a story without two separate, credible sources with first-hand information. If that standard was ever more than unjusfied nostalgia for the past, it hasn’t applied to journalism for a very long time. NBC knew they didn’t have a solid, truthful story, but it was too good to check. Apparently, they didn’t even have pertinent medical records to back it. Amin performed only two, entirely necessary, hysterectomies there. They knew Wooten had no first-hand knowledge to back her allegations, but they repeatedly ran with it anyway.
This settlement joins other recent, high dollar settlements and judgements against the media, and there will be more to come. The media’s lack of credibility, as always, is self-inflicted.
On a different subject, if you are not already a subscriber, you may not know that we’ve implemented something new: A weekly newsletter with unique content from our editors for subscribers only. These essays alone are worth the cost of the subscription.
Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
This article was originally published at www.americanthinker.com
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