More than 50 news organizations, politicians and celebrities have been sent letters by lawyers representing the Covington Catholic High School teens who were involved in a confrontation with a Native American man after a pro-life demonstration. The next step may be 54 lawsuits.
A short video of the confrontation went viral and the teens were vilified with some reports falsely claiming they were chanting "Build the Wall.”
"There was a rush by the media to believe what it wanted to believe versus what actually happened," attorney Todd McMurtry, who represents 16-year-old Nick Sandmann, told he The Cincinnati Enquirer.
The boys, who were wearing Make America Great Again hats, were accused of confronting a Native American man at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington and harassing him, and after a 30-second video was released on social media.
A firestorm of vitriol and hatred followed as the group was accused of racism.
Later a much longer video surfaced and showed the encounter in a much more favorable light to the students.
Letters have been sent warning of a possible lawsuit to, among others, the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, National Public Radio, journalists Joy Reid of MSNBC and NBC's Savannah Guthrie, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and celebrities Jim Carrey, Kathy Griffin and Alyssa Milano.
Although no lawsuits have been filed yet, McMurtry is working with famed attorney L. Linn Wood, who represented the family of murder victim Jon Benet Ramsey as well as Richard Jewell, the falsely accused Olympic Park bomber.
"Agenda-driven mainstream and social media attack and threaten a 16-year-old student based on an incomplete 30 second video clip," said Wood. "It would have taken less than 15 minutes to learn the truth about what was done to Nick Sandmann."