North Carolina’s Lieutenant Governor, Mark Robinson, has initiated legal proceedings against CNN following a recent news piece that accused him of posting explicit racial and sexual messages on a pornography website’s forum. Robinson described the reporting as not only reckless but also damaging to his reputation.

The lawsuit was lodged in the Wake County Superior Court and emerges just weeks after a television broadcast prompted several prominent Republican figures, including former President Donald Trump, to withdraw their support for Robinson’s gubernatorial aspirations. Robinson unveiled the lawsuit during a media gathering in Raleigh.

According to the legal filing, CNN proceeded to publish the report despite being aware or ignoring the fact that Robinson’s personal details, such as his name, birth date, passwords, and the email linked to the alleged account, had been compromised in previous data breaches.

In response to the situation, CNN opted not to offer any remarks, as indicated in an email by spokesperson Emily Kuhn.

At the time the CNN article was released, opinion polls indicated a competitive landscape, with Democratic candidate Josh Stein, the state’s current attorney general, showing a slight advantage over Robinson. As early in-person voting commenced statewide on Thursday, reports highlighted that more than 50,000 absentee ballots had already been processed.

The CNN report claimed that Robinson had made various controversial remarks over ten years prior in which he allegedly self-identified with extremist views, expressed preferences for certain types of adult content, and even criticized historical figures, using inflammatory language.