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Isn't this defamation? Would the reporter in question have a case against the Governor here? IANAL, would love an explanation of how I'm wrong by someone more knowledgeable.

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Probably no, because all the important alleged facts appear to be public. Expressing opinions (including wrong ones) is not defamatory in the US, and an inference based on disclosed, public facts is an opinion.

"X broke the law" isn't a fact in this narrow sense; rather it's an inference drawn from a set of facts.

e.g. (Volokh) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

/not-a-lawyer

Calling someone a hacker when they are clearly not remotely hacking, and saying they exposed private info when in fact it was the government, both seems like things that could be defemation to me.

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