Sarah Palin tests positive for COVID, delaying defamation trial against New York Times

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin tested positive for coronavirus just as jury selection got underway Monday in her defamation trial against The New York Times, prompting a 10-day delay.

The positive result from a rapid COVID test — which was confirmed by two subsequent tests later in the morning — means the trial will be pushed back to Feb. 3, provided the Republican candidate for vice president in 2008 has recovered from the disease.

”Ms. Palin had tested positive for coronavirus. She is, of course, unvaccinated,” Manhattan Federal Judge Jed Rakoff announced in court, according to reporters in the courtroom.

Palin proclaimed in December she would get vaccinated “over my dead body.”

The firebrand Republican sued the Times in 2017, claiming an editorial, “America’s Lethal Politics,” defamed her by wrongly linking ads from her political action committee to the 2011 shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).

The Times editorial incorrectly stated that ads by Palin’s PAC put “Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized crosshairs.”

But the crosshairs were actually over images of electoral districts rather than individual politicians.

The Times ran a correction. Former Opinion editor James Bennet, who resigned in 2020, and the newspaper itself, are named as defendants in the lawsuit.

“Taken in the light most favorable to [Palin], the evidence shows Bennet came up with an angle for the editorial, ignored the articles brought to his attention that were inconsistent with his angle, disregarded the … research he commissioned, and ultimately made the point he set out to make in reckless disregard of the truth,” Rakoff wrote in a 2020 opinion.

The judge had previously tossed the case because Bennet’s mistake did not rise to the level of actual “malice,” but Palin’s suit was revived on appeal.

After Palin tested positive, Rakoff suggested Palin could observe jury selection over a video feed and testify in person once she’s recovered. Jury selection could also proceed without her there at all if she agreed, the judge said.

But Palin’s lawyer requested a delay, saying his client wanted to be there in-person for the trial.

“We are hopeful the trial will be able to go forward on the new date,” said Jordan Cohen, a spokesman for the Times.

Palin’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It is not the first time the former vice presidential candidate has contracted COVID. She recovered from her first bout in March 2020. Palin touted her unvaccinated status just last month before an audience in Arizona.

“Enough is enough,” Palin said. “Especially when it comes to government telling us what we have to inject in our own bodies. No.