Sarah Palin said Thursday that she felt like the biblical figure David who was up against Goliath after the New York Times published an assertion in a 2017 editorial that a map created by her political action committee helped incite the gunman who wounded US Rep. Gabby Giffords.
Palin made the Old Testament analogy on the witness stand at her defamation trial against the newspaper while describing how she wanted to respond to the editorial.
“I felt powerless,” Palin told the jury while being questioned by her attorney, Kenneth Turkel.
“If I wanted to raise my head and try to get the word out, I knew I was up against Goliath,” she said, adding that she wasn’t sure of the “stones” she could use to respond.
She described the Times as the “end-all and be-all” of the media and said it was devastating that one of the largest newspaper in the country had linked her to a mass shooting that killed six people and wounded others.
“It was devastating to read again an accusation that I had anything to do with murder,” she said.
The Times’ editorial was published the same day a gunman opened fire on GOP members of Congress at a Northern Virginia baseball field in 2017.
The piece, which was edited by then-editorial page editor James Bennet, mentioned the 2011 mass shooting that wounded Giffords and asserted there was “clear” link between that shooting and political incitement.
The editorial pointed to a map published by Palin’s PAC that showed congressional districts under cross hairs as evidence of the political incitement before the shooting.
On the stand Thursday, Palin said she had difficulty sleeping after the editorial was published, but didn’t describe other personal or financial hardships because of the editorial.
“It’s hard to lay your head on the pillow and have restful nights when you know lies are told about you,” Palin said.
“A specific lie that was not going to be fixed. That causes some stress,” she added.
During cross-examination, Times lawyer David Axelrod questioned Palin about a statement she released after the 2011 shooting, which accused journalists and pundits of manufacturing a “blood libel” that would incite hatred and violence.
“It was in response to the tragedy and a warning to anyone with power of the pen not to make anything up,” Palin said of the language.
Axelrod also grilled Palin on alleged damages to her reputation that she suffered as a result of the editorial.
The former Alaska governor couldn’t name a politician or friend who shied away from her after the piece was published.
“I can’t name names,” she said.
Palin also said she never visited a doctor and did not take medication for the loss of sleep she experienced because of the editorial. She said she “ holistically remedied issues that were caused by stress.”
Axelrod also highlighted her continued work in politics after the editorial was published, which included stumping for then-Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore three months after the piece ran.
Palin’s rumored boyfriend, ex-Rangers player Ron Duguay, met her in front of the courthouse when she left for the day at about 3:45 p.m.
The former hockey player said they are just friends, but they’ve “gotten closer through this process.”
A political link to the 2011 shooting was never established. The idea that the map created by Palin’s PAC was connected to the shooting had been debunked years before the editorial was published.
Palin sued the Times in 2017 after the editorial, headlined “America’s Lethal Politics,” was published online and in the newspaper.
At the Manhattan federal trial, current and former editors at the Times, including Bennet, said they felt terrible for unintentionally publishing the error.
A spokesperson for the Times has said the error was unintentional and corrected hours after it was published online.
