Shirley Sherrod, who was fired from her USDA job last year after Andrew Breitbart posted online an edited video of her, has filed a lawsuit for libel and slander against Breitbart in D.C. Superior Court. The suit was filed on Friday, and Breitbart was served with it this weekend, while attending the Conservative Political Action Conference, according to The New York Times.Sherrod was the Georgia Director of Rural Development for the USDA until July, when Breitbart posted the edited video, in which she was shown telling the Coffee County, GA NAACP about a time she didn’t help a farmer as much as she could have because he was white. The video made national news, and Sherrod was forced to resign shortly after its release. But when the NAACP released the full version of the video — in which it was clear Sherrod was speaking about overcoming her own racial prejudices — the story turned. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs offered Sherrod public apologies, and she was offered a new job at the USDA — which she turned down.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=114735