PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA – An Army major general testified Friday to hire U.S. Navy veteran Zachary Young, a prosecutor in the high-stakes defamation lawsuit against CNN, before a controversial television report involving him, but not after it aired, saying it made him “too risky.”
Young claims CNN defamed him in a November 2021 report that first aired on “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” suggesting he made illegal money from desperate people trying to flee Afghanistan after Biden administration military retirement, implying that he was involved in “black market” dealings and as a result destroying his professional reputation.
Maj. Gen. James V. Young, who is not related to the plaintiff, was the first expert to testify to share his military and intelligence experience, including his knowledge of Afghanistan leading up to the withdrawal and his thoughts on the aftermath.
He testified that he had a security clearance, but that he had not worked for more than a year. On Thursday, a document showing the prosecutor renewed his security clearance caused chaos in the courtroom when CNN’s legal team implied it contradicted testimony that the prosecutor had not worked since the CNN segment aired.
Maj. Gen. James V. Young, who is not related to the plaintiff, was the first expert witness to testify in CNN’s defamation trial. (Fox News Digital/Law & Crime)
Maj. Gen. Young also explained how he often deleted messages related to evacuations, something CNN’s legal team repeatedly reprimanded the prosecutor for doing. In addition, he believed that the prices charged by the plaintiff to the corporations for evacuations from Afghanistan were “reasonable” after CNN labeled such prices as “exorbitant.”
“We couldn’t have done what we did for free,” he said.
When asked if he would hire a prosecutor after watching the report on CNN, he answered “no”. When asked why, it immediately drew objections from CNN’s defense team, which led to a column with Judge William Henry.
Henry ordered plaintiffs’ attorney Kyle Roche to rephrase the question to ask why Maj. Gen. Young’s company would not retain the prosecutor’s services, to which he responded that the CNN segment created a “risk” and could damage the reputation of anyone who hired the prosecutor.
“I would see someone like this as too risky for our operation to be associated with,” said Major General Young.
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The major general testified that he would have hired US Navy veteran Zachary Young before the controversial CNN segment aired, but not after. (Jessica Costescu)
Maj. Gen. Young said the prosecutor would have been seen as “the best of the best” before CNN’s report if he had worked with high-profile intelligence chiefs such as Leon Panetta and Jeremy Bash, who were named in a document describing the project on which he testified for.
CNN General Counsel David Axelrod, not to be confused with CNN political commentatorquestioned the witness about whether he had inquired about the prosecutor’s qualifications with anyone in the military or intelligence community before the trial, which he admitted he had not. He also testified that he had never met the plaintiff or had any knowledge of him and that he had been paid to speak as an expert witness.
After the break, Axelrod pressed Maj. Gen. Young about his comments about not hiring a prosecutor after a segment on CNN, asking him if he would let a hypothetical 16-year-old girl die in Afghanistan because he didn’t want to hire a prosecutor simply because of the report.
“We would try other methods,” Major General Young replied.
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U.S. Navy veteran Zachary Young believes CNN “destroyed his reputation and business by branding him an illegal profiteer exploiting desperate Afghans” during CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper” segment on November 11, 2021. (CNN/Screenshot)
Maj. Gen. Young later told Axelrod that he would not hire a prosecutor even after CNN published an on-air correction. But Axelrod pressed him that he did not ask anyone if they would hire him after the CNN report. The witness replied that he was giving his “expert opinion”.
In a brief redirect of Roche’s question after cross-examination, Maj. Gen. Young was asked if there was anything “unethical” about the prosecutor’s work in Afghanistan, to which he replied “no.”
Asked if he would have hired a prosecutor if the CNN segment hadn’t aired, Maj. Gen. Young said “of course.”
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Alex Marquardt, the correspondent who anchored the CNN segment at the center of the defamation case, is scheduled to testify Monday.
The trial is broadcast live Fox News Digital.
