2026年6月29日 美国东部时间下午2:12 / 福克斯新闻频道
保守派大法官认为，《纽约时报诉沙利文案》中的“实际恶意”标准在宪法中毫无依据
作者：查尔斯·克赖茨，福克斯新闻
唐纳德·特朗普总统在周日《60分钟》节目采访中提及他对哥伦比亚广播公司新闻部的胜诉诉讼，告诉主持人诺拉·奥唐奈，该媒体向他支付了“巨额赔偿金”。
新增功能：你现在可以收听福克斯新闻的文章了！
blob:https://www.foxnews.com/491ef378-fbaa-47c9-ad95-9961620e620c
收听本文
4分钟
美国最高法院两名保守派大法官批评多数派大法官拒绝受理律师艾伦·德肖维茨起诉美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）的诽谤案，称最高法院错失了重新审视1960年代一项颇具争议的诽谤先例的机会。
最高法院保守派阵营的异议意见实质上呼吁大法官们重新审视长期存在的诽谤先例，呼应了唐纳德·特朗普总统2016年呼吁放宽美国诽谤法的主张。
曾代表特朗普、O·J·辛普森和利昂娜·赫尔姆斯利等知名人物的德肖维茨指控CNN恶意剪辑了他在特朗普首次弹劾审判中关于“交换条件”的辩护片段，使其听起来仿佛他发表了与完整陈述完全相反的言论，并利用该片段损害他的声誉。
最高法院大法官克拉伦斯·托马斯和尼尔·戈萨奇——分别由乔治·H·W·布什总统和特朗普总统任命——批评同僚在评估CNN是否诽谤德肖维茨时依赖“实际恶意”标准，辩称该标准并非植根于宪法，而是由最高法院1964年具有里程碑意义的《纽约时报公司诉沙利文案》判决所创设。
以色列总理内塔尼亚胡就争议性“狗强奸”报道起诉《纽约时报》诽谤
视频
“不出所料，德肖维茨在这项由本院在《纽约时报公司诉沙利文案》中确立的严苛标准下未能胜诉。德肖维茨如今请求本院推翻沙利文案及相关先例，”这两名保守派大法官在异议意见中写道。
德肖维茨也在接受福克斯新闻数字频道采访时对该异议意见作出回应，称多数派所采用的标准“不可能”达成。
“所有法官都认可CNN对我撒谎了，”他周一说道。
“但多数派在异议声中裁定，我必须以清晰且有说服力的证据证明实际恶意——这是一项我认为未来数年必将被推翻的不可能达成的标准。”
沙利文案缘起于阿拉巴马州蒙哥马利市一名专员起诉《纽约时报》诽谤，原因是该报刊登了一则整版广告，批评该市对待民权抗议者的方式。
尽管广告中并未提及L·B·沙利文的名字，阿拉巴马州陪审团仍裁定其获得损害赔偿。最高法院随后推翻了该判决，认定公职人员若要在诽谤案中胜诉，必须证明相关言论是在“实际恶意”——即明知其为虚假或不顾事实真相肆意妄为——的情况下作出的。
“针对公众人物的实际恶意标准与宪法的文本、历史或结构毫无关联，”托马斯和戈萨奇在周一就德肖维茨一案发表的异议意见中写道。
“相反，建国一代认为，若有区别的话，公众人物在遭受诽谤时本应拥有更强的损害赔偿请求权。”
托马斯和戈萨奇援引了1798年《煽动法》作为历史例证，该法律针对公职人员的诽谤性言论设定的门槛要低得多。
时任佛蒙特州联邦众议员的马修·莱昂因将约翰·亚当斯总统描述为“对荒谬排场、愚蠢谄媚和自私贪婪有着无限渴望”而在美法紧张关系期间被依据该法律起诉。
法官驳回特朗普针对《华尔街日报》提起的100亿美元诽谤诉讼，该报道涉及爱泼斯坦相关内容
视频
托马斯·杰斐逊总统在1801年让该法律到期失效，并赦免了许多因此法案落网的人。
近年来，特朗普一直呼吁放宽美国诽谤法，呼应了托马斯和戈萨奇对最高法院诽谤判例的类似担忧。
2016年总统竞选期间，特朗普承诺如果当选，将“放宽我们的诽谤法”，以便起诉他经常贴上“假新闻”标签的意识形态综合体。
订阅获取政治新闻通讯
那些“蓄意撰写负面、恶劣且虚假文章的记者——我们可以起诉他们，并且赢下大笔赔偿金，”特朗普说道。
他经常将CNN作为主要抨击目标——长期与其时任白宫记者、播客主持人吉姆·阿科斯塔互怼，这一点广为人知。
2017年的一次新闻发布会上，阿科斯塔多次打断特朗普的发言，特朗普要求他“别这么无礼”。特朗普告知阿科斯塔，不会让他提问，因为“你就是假新闻”。
2025年1月20日，在美国华盛顿特区国会大厦圆形大厅举行的就职典礼结束后，最高法院大法官塞缪尔·阿利托和克拉伦斯·托马斯离开舞台。(奇普·索莫德维拉/法新社 via 盖蒂图片社)
点击此处下载福克斯新闻APP
“我们将放宽诽谤法，届时人们起诉你的方式会让你前所未闻，”特朗普在2016年的这场活动中说道，随后还点名提及了《纽约时报》和《华盛顿邮报》。
此次最高法院拒绝受理德肖维茨的案件，加上特朗普针对特纳创立的CNN提起的诉讼——指控其使用“大谎言”一词描述他关于2020年大选的主张——为最高法院重新审视沙利文案留下了可能性，尽管短期内此类变革似乎不太可能发生。
福克斯新闻数字频道已联系CNN征求其对该异议意见的置评。
作者在宾夕法尼亚州阿伦敦出生并长大，自2013年起在福克斯新闻纽约和华盛顿分社工作。
Thomas, Gorsuch target landmark ruling Trump says protects the ‘fake news’
June 29, 2026 2:12pm EDT / Fox News
The conservative justices argued the ‘actual malice’ standard from New York Times v. Sullivan has no basis in the Constitution
By Charles Creitz, Fox News
President Donald Trump brought up his successful lawsuit against CBS News during an interview on “60 Minutes” on Sunday, telling host Norah O’Donnell they had to pay him “a lot of money.”
NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!
blob:https://www.foxnews.com/491ef378-fbaa-47c9-ad95-9961620e620c
Listen to this article
4 min
Two of the Supreme Court’s conservative justices criticized the majority’s decision not to take up attorney Alan Dershowitz’s defamation case against CNN, saying the high court missed an opportunity to revisit a controversial 1960s defamation precedent.
The dissent from the court’s conservative wing effectively called on the justices to revisit longstanding libel precedent, echoing President Donald Trump’s 2016 calls to loosen U.S. libel laws.
Dershowitz, who has represented famous figures like Trump, O.J. Simpson and Leona Helmsley, claimed CNN deceptively edited a snippet of his defense during Trump’s first impeachment trial about “quid pro quo[s]” to make it sound like he said the opposite of his fuller statements and used that clip to damage his reputation.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch — appointees of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Trump, respectively — criticized their colleagues for relying on the “actual malice” standard in evaluating whether CNN defamed Dershowitz, arguing the standard is not rooted in the Constitution and instead was created in the Supreme Court’s landmark 1964 decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.
ISRAELI PM NETANYAHU INITIATING DEFAMATION LAWSUIT AGAINST NEW YORK TIMES OVER CONTROVERSIAL ‘DOG RAPE’ STORY
Video
“Predictably, Dershowitz did not prevail under that exacting standard, which this Court created in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. Dershowitz now asks this Court to overrule Sullivan and related precedents,” the conservatives wrote.
Dershowitz also reacted to the dissent in remarks to Fox News Digital, calling the majority’s standard “impossible” to overcome.
“All the judges agreed that CNN lied about me,” he said Monday.
“But the majority ruled, over dissents, that I had to prove actual malice by clear and convincing evidence— an impossible standard that I believe will be overruled in years to come.”
The Sullivan case arose after a Montgomery, Alabama, commissioner sued the Times for libel over a full-page advertisement criticizing how the city treated civil rights protesters.
An Alabama jury awarded damages to L.B. Sullivan even though he was not mentioned by name in the ad. The Supreme Court later reversed the ruling, holding that a public official cannot prevail in a defamation case unless he proves the statement was made with “actual malice” — knowing it was false or acting with reckless disregard for the truth.
“The actual-malice standard for public figures bears no relation to the text, history, or structure of the Constitution,” Thomas and Gorsuch wrote Monday in Dershowitz’ case.
“Instead, the founding generation believed that, if anything, public figures had stronger claims for damages when they were defamed.”
As one historical example, Thomas and Gorsuch pointed to the Sedition Act of 1798, which imposed a far lower threshold for defamatory statements about public officials.
Then-Rep. Matthew Lyon, D-Vt., was prosecuted under the law for characterizing President John Adams as someone with “unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation and selfish avarice” during American tensions with France.
JUDGE DISMISSES TRUMP’S $10B DEFAMATION LAWSUIT AGAINST THE WALL STREET JOURNAL OVER EPSTEIN STORY
Video
President Thomas Jefferson allowed that law to expire in 1801 and pardoned many caught in its net.
More recently, Trump has called for loosening U.S. libel laws, echoing concerns similar to those expressed by Thomas and Gorsuch about the court’s defamation jurisprudence.
While running for president in 2016, Trump pledged to “open up our libel laws” if elected to pursue the ideological conglomerate he often labels “fake news.”
SIGN UP TO GET THE POLITICS NEWSLETTER
Journalists who “write purposefully negative and horrible and false articles — we can sue them and win lots of money,” Trump said.
He has often singled out defendant CNN more than most – famously warring regularly with its then-White House correspondent, podcaster Jim Acosta.
During one 2017 incident, Acosta repeatedly interrupted Trump during a news conference, leading the president to demand he not “be rude.” Trump informed Acosta that he would not be taking a question from him because “you are fake news.”
Supreme Court Associate Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas wait to leave the stage after the inauguration ceremonies in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, 2025.(Chip Somodevilla/AFP via Getty Images)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
“We’re going to open up libel laws, and we’re going to have people sue you like you’ve never got sued before,” Trump said at the 2016 event, going on to further name-drop the Times and Washington Post.
The ruling, along with Trump’s own lawsuit against the Ted Turner-founded network over its use of the term “Big Lie” to describe his claims about the 2020 election, leaves open the possibility that the court could revisit Sullivan, though such a shift appears unlikely in the near term.
Fox News Digital reached out to CNN for comment on the dissent.
Born and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, worked in both the New York and Washington bureaus for Fox News since 2013.
发表回复