Glenn Beck

By Elaine Magliaro

Last April, I wrote a post about Glenn Beck being sued by a 20-year-old Saudi Arabian student named Abdulrahman Alharbi. After the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, Boston Magazine reported that Alharbi “became the focus of public speculation for a brief time during the search for those responsible for setting off two pressure cooker bombs on Boylston Street.” Alharbi—who was injured in the bombing—had won a full scholarship to study English in Boston. He was questioned by police and ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing in the matter.

Excerpt from my post:

That wasn’t enough for Glenn Beck though. The well-known conspiracy theorist and former Fox News personality still had suspicions about the Saudi national. Last April, the radio host “urged the U.S. government to release information on Alharbi.” Beck said if the government didn’t, he would “expose” the young man. “Let me send this message very clear,” said Beck. “We know who this Saudi national is…. We know who this man is and, listen to me carefully, we know he is a very bad, bad, bad man.

Days later, Beck was still pushing his theory about Alharbi being involved in the monstrous act. Beck said, “While the media continues to look at what the causes were [behind] these two guys, there are, at this hour, three people involved.” He alleged that the U.S. government had “tagged” Alharbi as a “proven terrorist.” According to The Washington Post, Beck later claimed that Alharbi was an al-Qaeda “control agent” and the “money man” behind the attacks. “You know who the Saudi is?” Beck asked. “He’s the money man. He’s the guy who paid for it.”

Alharbi decided to file a defamation lawsuit against the radio host. According to Boston Magazine, Alharbi claimed that political commentator “Glenn Beck and the company that carries his show, The Blaze, smeared his name in the media even after Alharbi was no longer the subject of the investigation.”

Luke Brinker (Salon) reported today that a federal judge has denied Glenn Beck’s request to dismiss Alharbi’s libel lawsuit that accuses the conservative talking head of defaming him and falsely accusing him of funding the Boston Marathon bombing.

Josh Gerstein (Politico) wrote that in a ruling today, “U.S. District Court Judge Patti Saris said the suit brought by Abdulrahman Alharbi could go forward notwithstanding claims by Beck, his website The Blaze.com, and firms connected to his radio show that the Saudi’s role in events near the finish line of the marathon made him a public figure.” Gerstein noted that if Alharbi had been deemed a public figure, he “would have found it difficult or impossible to proceed with the suit since he would need proof of actual malice: namely, that Beck intentionally lied or recklessly disregarded the truth.”

Gerstein:

Alharbi was briefly investigated in connection with the bombing and a variety of media outlets reported on that inquiry. But Saris said that was not sufficient to render the student, who also incurred minor injuries at the finish line, a public figure.

“Choosing to attend a sporting event as one of thousands of spectators is not the kind of conduct that a reasonable person would expect to result in publicity. Quite to the contrary, a spectator at an event like the Boston Marathon would reasonably expect to disappear into the throngs of others, never attracting notice by the press. Because he did not ‘assume the risk of publicity,’ Alharbi does not meet the definition of an involuntary public figure,” the judge wrote.

Gerstein added that unless the case is settled, it will now likely “proceed to a discovery phase where the two sides exchange information and take depositions from those involved.”

SOURCES

Judge allows libel lawsuit against Glenn Beck to proceed (Salon)

It Couldn’t Happen to a Nicer Guy: Glenn Beck Sued for Defamation (Flowers for Socrates)

Glenn Beck loses bid to dismiss Saudi’s libel suit (Politico)