Conservative commentator and Fox News contributor Dan Bongino has filed a $15 million lawsuit against The Daily Beast for defamation, Fox News has reported.
The lawsuit stems from a story published in December 2018, in which Daily Beast reporter Lachlan Markay claimed Bongino was fired from NRA TV. Bongino says he had been in contact with Markay prior to the story’s publication, with Markay confirming to him that his sources had told him the truth of the matter—that Bongino had simply chosen not to renew his contract—but published the falsehood anyway.
“I gave them the opportunity multiple times, asked them on Twitter to correct it,” Bongino said. “I gave them an opportunity via text recently to correct it.”
When The Daily Beast refused to issue a correction or retraction on all of those occasions, Bongino announced the lawsuit, claiming that the Beast acted with “actual malice and reckless disregard for the truth.”
The lawsuit was filed in a court in the Southern District of Florida, and further criticizes the outlet as a “digital assassin owned and controlled by billionaire Clinton-devotees, Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg.” The suit also alleges The Daily Beast “promotes its left-wing ideology and agendas via its website and social media.”