Sarah Palin loses bid to disqualify Judge Jed Rakoff from NY Times defamation trial

Sarah Palin’s attempt to disqualify the judge who tossed her defamation suit against the New York Times and receive a new trial failed Tuesday.

The former Republican vice presidential candidate called on Manhattan federal court Judge Jed Rakoff to disqualify himself in March, arguing a new trial was required after he made a series of errors that tainted the jury’s decision.

Palin said Rakoff was wrong to dismiss the case while jurors — who ultimately sided with the Times — were still deliberating.

Rakoff said in February that Palin’s lawyers failed to provide evidence that the paper and former editorial page editor James Bennet acted with actual malice when they published the 2017 piece headlined “America’s Lethal Politics.”

Palin’s lawyers said Rakoff set too high a bar for her to prove the Times acted maliciously.

The judge scoffed at the former Alaskan governor’s request to recuse himself in a written statement Tuesday, calling it “frivolous.”

“The meritless accusations of impropriety in Palin’s motion cannot substitute for what her trial presentation lacked: proof of actual malice,” he wrote.

Rakoff said she failed to identify any legal errors in her request.

The article in question, a June 14, 2017 editorial, was published the same day a gunman opened fire on GOP members of Congress at a Northern Virginia baseball field – and sought to comment on gun control and heated political rhetoric in the US.

When editing the editorial, Bennet included language about the 2011 deadly mass shooting that seriously wounded Rep. Gabby Giffords in Arizona.

In the paragraph, Bennet asserted there was a “clear” link between the massacre and “political incitement,” in part because of a map created by Sarah Palin’s political action committee.

No link was ever established and the story was corrected the following morning. Palin sued the Times weeks after the piece was published.

Palin, who is running to represent Alaska in Congress, is appealing the verdict.

With Post wires