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North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson has hired a Trump-aligned lawyer to go after CNN, which reported last week that the Republican left a litany of racist and disturbing comments on a pornography website before entering politics.
Robinson announced Tuesday he had hired attorney Jesse Binnall, who represented Trump in his unsuccessful attempt to overturn the 2020 election results in Nevada and defended the former president in a January 6 insurrection case.
“I am confident that Binnall Law Group will leave no stone unturned and enable us to use every legal means to hold CNN accountable for their lies,” Robinson, the current lieutenant governor of North Carolina, said in a statement obtained by The Hill. “In the meantime, my campaign remains laser-focused on the issues at stake in this election.”
Despite lawyering up, Robinson reportedly rejected attempts from supporters to connect him with IT experts to investigate the comments which might have exonerated him.
The Independent has contacted CNN for comment.
Last week, the broadcaster reported that Robinson left comments on a porn site called Nude Africa calling himself a “Black Nazi,” praising Hitler, admitting to “peeping” on women as a teen, and describing his arousal from transgender pornography, despite publicly attacking trans people during his campaign.
Robinson has denied making the comments, which CNN said could be matched to biographical details and a common username and email Robinson used across various websites.
“I’m not going to get into the minutiae of how somebody manufactured this, these salacious tabloid lies,” Robinson told CNN.
User data shows the account in question on Nude Africa accessed the site from a location near Robinson’s home, according to further reporting by Politico.
In addition to imperiling his own campaign, Robinson’s alleged comments may also threaten Donald Trump, who has previously lavished the North Carolina Republican with praise, calling him Martin Luther King, Jr., “on steroids.”
North Carolina is a key swing state, and the Trump campaign has since attempted to distance itself from Robinson.
“This is an issue that has to do with Robinson’s campaign and not President Trump’s campaign,” a Trump official told Axios on Thursday.
JD Vance has also tried to keep Robinson at arm’s length.
“I don’t not believe him, I don’t believe him — I just think that you have to let these things sometimes play out in the court of public opinion,” he told NBC News when asked about the North Carolina candidate.
