Mark Robinson drops libel suit against CNN over reporting on pro-Nazi internet posts

Disgraced former North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is moving to drop his libel lawsuit against CNN for an explosive story last year that effectively destroyed his MAGA campaign for governor, Politico reported on Friday.

Robinson had filed the suit last October, in the final weeks before losing the election to Democratic state Attorney General Josh Stein, who carried the race by double digits even as President Donald Trump won the top of the ballot.

“The fact of the matter is this: the price we have paid in entering the political arena will never be recognized,” said Robinson in a press release announcing the end of the suit. “There is no dollar amount high enough.”

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Robinson, a former gun rights activist who was elected lieutenant governor in 2020, has long been controversial over a series of social media posts in which he attacked school shooting survivors, excused domestic violence, and denied the Holocaust. But everything came to a head when CNN reported that he called himself a "Black NAZI," suggested that "some people need to be slaves," and confessed that he enjoyed watching transgender adult content despite his public demonization of LGBTQ people.

All of these posts had been made to the pornographic website "Nude Africa" under the username, "minisoldr," which was matched to other accounts known to belong to him.

Robinson has consistently denied he made the posts, and suggested that someone "manufactured" the evidence using artificial intelligence to sabotage him. He swiftly launched the libel suit against CNN after the story broke, but never provided any evidence that the story was fabricated, maliciously or otherwise.

Trump, who had campaigned alongside Robinson, initially continued to praise him, but after North Carolina Republicans somewhat abandoned his campaign, Trump went on to deny he knew Robinson.