Fast and Furious whistleblower John Dodson sues Time, alleges Fortune libeled him

10/24/2012
Matthew Boyle
dailycaller.com



Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives special agent John Dodson is suing Time, Inc., The Daily Caller has learned, alleging that its Fortune Magazine libeled him in an article it ran this summer. Dodson is the ATF agent who blew the whistle on Fast and Furious, exposing the failures of the operation to the American people.

The article, authored by Katherine Eban, claims that a “Fortune investigation reveals that the ATF never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. How the world came to believe just the opposite is a tale of rivalry, murder, and political bloodlust.” The article was headlined “The Truth about the Fast and Furious Scandal.”

In his libel lawsuit complaint, obtained by TheDC, Dodson said that “predicate is false and deceptive in that it leads readers to erroneously believe that it is the only accurate account of these events.”

Dodson also alleges “the article is fictitious in the sense that it contains facts that Defendant knew to be false prior to publication. Further, the contentions made in the article have been eviscerated in the public domain.”

“[T]he article generally concerns the United States Justice Department’s ‘gun walking’ operation known as ‘Fast and Furious,’ which allowed firearms to end up in the possession of Mexican drug cartels,” Dodson said in the lawsuit. “Despite the admitted and unquestioned Justice Department directive to implement this program, known to Defendant prior to publication, the Defendant nonetheless characterized the ‘public case’ of this program as being ‘….. replete with distortions, errors, partial truths, and even some outright lies.’”

Specifically, Dodson alleges that Eban – and therefore, Time – “falsely reported that the Plaintiff initiated gun walking activity based on a grudge he had with his superior.”

Dodson said the accurate way to report that would have been to characterize him as “an ATF agent stationed in Phoenix, Arizona,” who was “following a department directive.”

“Further, Defendant’s article is malicious because Defendant, through its author, disregarded whether the statements about Plaintiff are true or false, but rather, relied heavily on the opinion of one person without considering the person’s reputation for veracity,” Dodson added.


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