Nick Sandmann, the junior at Covington Catholic High School who went viral after he came face-to-face with Native American activist and Vietnam War veteran Nathan Phillips on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, has filed a lawsuit against the Washington Post.
Sandmann is suing the paper for a whopping $250 million, according to Reuters.
The lawsuit Sandmann filed claims that the paper “targeted and bullied” him after the video went viral online. The video was a short clip of a longer altercation that shows Sandmann never approached Phillips like originally reported.
“In a span of three days in January of this year commencing on January 19, the Post engaged in a modern-day form of McCarthyism by competing with CNN and NBC, among others, to claim leadership of a mainstream and social media mob of bullies which attacked, vilified, and threatened Nicholas Sandmann, an innocent secondary school child,” the suit reads, according to the Washington Post. “The Post ignored basic journalist standards because it wanted to advance its well-known and easily documented, biased agenda against President Donald J. Trump by impugning individuals perceived to be supporters of the President.”
Washington Post Vice President of communications Kristine Coratti Kelly says the publication plans to “mount a vigorous defense” after reviewing the lawsuit.
In the initial clip that was shared online, it appeared that Sandmann and others were mocking Phillips, who was beating on a drum after participating in the Indigenous Peoples March last Friday.
According to Sandmann, and a nearly two-hour video that shows a broader picture of the incident, he and the Covington Catholic High School students were being harassed by a group identifying themselves as the Black Hebrew Israelites. You can watch the full video here.