CNN defamation trial: Plaintiff accuses network of faking critical phone call for 'theater'
The plaintiff in CNN’s ongoing defamation trial accused CNN correspondent Alex Marquardt of staging a phone call to him for "theater," but the reporter insists the call was made and simply recreated for television.
Zachary Young alleges CNN smeared him in a November 2021 report that first aired on "The Lead with Jake Tapper," suggesting he illegally profited off desperate people trying to flee Afghanistan following the Biden administration's military withdrawal, implying he was involved in "black market" dealings that ruined his professional reputation.
During the televised segment at the heart of the trial, CNN correspondent Alex Marquardt claimed to make an on-air call to Young. But the Navy veteran insists he never received the call, and screenshots from his Signal account back up the claim Marquardt didn’t actually place the call.
However, Marquardt testified on Monday that he called the number he believed to belong to Young, and whom the jurors believe could help determine who prevails in the high-stakes trial.
Young’s lead counsel Vel Freedman showed the jury footage of Marquardt allegedly making the call via Signal, an encrypted messaging app popular with journalists. The number he dialed was saved on his iPhone as Zachary Young. Nobody answered.
"You make sure the cameraman has a clear view of Zachary Young, the contact, right?" Freedman asked.
"Yeah, you can see his long Austrian number there," Marquardt responded.
Freedman shot back, "We see a long Austrian number there, right?"
"But that’s the one [CNN reporter] Katie Bo Lillis was texting him on," Marquardt answered.
Freedman said he couldn’t see the number, but Marquardt responded, "I know for a fact it was the same number in my phone."
"The screen shows you calling a contact called Zachary Young, right?" Freedman asked.
"That’s right," Marquardt said.
Freedman then reminded the CNN correspondent he had taken an oath to tell the truth.
"Was that Mr. Young’s actual phone number or just a friend’s phone number you saved under Zachary Young’s name?" Freedman asked.
"That was the number I believed to be Mr. Young’s that I had gotten from Katie Bo Lillis, because she had been texting with him on that number," Marquardt said.
Freedman then showed the jury side-by-side images of Marquardt and Young’s phone, highlighting the place where Signal showed missed calls between parties. Neither Signal account showed any phone call between Marquardt and Young.
"Signal shows call messages in its chat history, right," Freedman said.
"It does, yes," Marquardt responded.
Freedman explained that the text conversation between Marquardt and Young started on November 10, 2021, and the phone call was allegedly placed on November 3, 2021.
"There is no missed call in Mr. Young’s chat history, correct?" Freedman said.
Marquardt answered, "I don’t see it there."
"There is no outgoing call in your message history with Mr. Young, correct?" Freedman asked.
"That’s correct," Marquardt said.
"Was that Zachary Young saved under that phone number?" Freedman asked.
"Yes, it was. It was the same number that Katie Bo Lillis had given me, that he had been using," Marquardt said.
Freedman then showed the jury behind-the-scenes footage of Marquardt making the call and a producer can be heard giving him instructions to step back for the camera.
Marquardt said he let it ring "quite a few times" before hanging up because nobody answered. He admitted a cameraman told him to hold the phone and pretend to be listening.
"You’re pretending to call Mr. Young, correct?" Freedman said.
"I don’t know what I was doing at the time, it looks like I was placing a call," Marquardt said.
Marquardt admitted no ringing could be heard on the video.
"You were pretending to call him, weren’t you?" Freedman asked after pausing the video.
"I don’t know," Marquardt said.
Freedman asked if he was ready to admit he was "pretending" to call Young after the video didn’t show any ringing and Signal didn’t show a missed call.
"I was holding my phone like I was making a phone call after having made the phone call. What you’re getting at is very basic TV production," Marquardt said. "We will get shots that we want to edit into the piece."
"Theater, right," Freedman said, hinting at something that was coming up on the video.
"This is very standard practice," Marquardt said.
"That very standard practice of a fake phone call makes it into the final production video, right?" Freedman said.
"You saw the very real phone call that I tried to place to Mr. Young, and I wish that he had picked up, so he could explain what he was doing. There was absolutely a call to Mr. Young made that day," Marquardt said.
Freedman shot back, "Sir, I saw you place a phone call to someone you named Zachary Young… that’s all I saw."
"I can tell you Mr. Freedman, I used the phone number that was given to me by my colleague that had been texting with Mr. Young. As far as I knew, that phone number was Mr. Young’s because she had been successful at texting with him," Marquardt said.
"The same phone number, mind you, that I then used a week later to text with him that he responded on," Marquardt added. "As far as I knew, that was his phone number. I called him, he did not pick up the phone."
Marquardt then said the video the jury was being shown was called a "pickup shot," which would be edited into the final story.
"This is very standard production," Marquardt said.
"That shot of you pretending to call Mr. Young makes it into the final segment, correct?" Freedman asked.
"Yes," Marquardt said.
"That theater makes it into the final segment, correct?" Freedman asked.
"No, that shot did," Marquardt answered.
Freedman then asked the court to resume the paused behind-the-scenes video of Marquardt allegedly making the call. When the video resumed, Marquardt was seen waving his hands and saying the word "theater" to his CNN colleagues in an exaggerated British accent.
"Sir, that theater makes it into the final shot, correct?" Freedman asked.
"The phone call did," Marquardt responded.
"You can’t even say it, can you?" Freedman said. "’Theater,' it made it into the final shot, right?"
Marquardt insisted he "didn’t fake" a phone call, prompting Freedman to remind the CNN correspondent he just explained that faking the call was standard TV production.
"That theater made it into the final video segment, correct?" Freedman said, imitating the voice Marquardt used to say the word "theater" in the video.
"The pickup shot did, yeah," Marquardt said as Young was seen cracking a rare smile in the courtroom.
"I appreciate that you’re trying to paint this as some type of scandal. I can explain what’s going on here," Marquardt said.
Freedman then reminded Marquardt he previously testified that what he considered "theater" wasn’t used in the report.
"You lied to the jury, did you not?" Freedman asked.
"I did not," Marquardt said.
Marquardt later insisted his "theater" joke in the behind-the-scenes video was a reference to an old Jon Lovitz sketch on "Saturday Night Live."
The trial is being streamed live on Fox News Digital.