A teenager who was pictured wearing a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat during a stand-off with a Native American activist is suing the Washington Post for defamation – to the tune of $250m.
Lawyers for Nicholas Sandmann, 16, claim the newspaper falsely accused him of racist acts and instigating the confrontation in January, which was filmed at the Lincoln Memorial.
The amount the Covington Catholic High School student is suing for is the amount that Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com and the world’s richest person, paid for the Post in 2013.
The lawsuit claims that the newspaper “wrongfully targeted and bullied” the 16-year-old to advance its bias against President Donald Trump because Sandmann is a white Catholic who wore a MAGA souvenir cap on a school field trip to the March for Life anti-abortion rally in Washington, DC on 18 January.
The Washington Post’s spokesperson Kristine Coratti Kelly said: “We are reviewing a copy of the lawsuit and we plan to mount a vigorous defence.”
In a photo that went viral from the incident, Sandmann is seen standing face to face with Native American activist Nathan Phillips. Sandmann stares smiling at him while Phillips sings and plays his drum.
The incident sparked outrage on social media.
In a statement, Sandmann’s Atlanta-based lawyer, Lin Wood, said additional similar lawsuits would be filed in the weeks ahead.
A private investigation company hired by Covington Diocese in Park Hills, Kentucky, found no evidence the teenagers provoked a confrontation.
The students were met at the Lincoln Memorial by offensive statements from members of the Black Hebrew Israelites, the report – which was released last week – said.
Phillips claimed in a separate video that he heard the students chanting “build that wall” during the encounter, a reference to Trump’s pledge to build a barrier along the US border with Mexico.
The investigators said they found no evidence of such a chant and that Phillips did not respond to multiple attempts to contact him.