Roy Moore’s $95 million defamation lawsuit against Sacha Baron Cohen rejected (again)

Sacha Baron Cohen has stared down the void, and the void, once again, blinked first. The actor and comedian is known for playing games of chicken with the worst of humanity and coming out on top (as Rudy Giuliani found out the hard way). This has proven true once more in his legal battle with Roy Moore.

Moore, as you may recall, is the former Alabama Supreme Court Justice whose senate campaign was tanked by sexual misconduct allegations regarding then-underaged girls. After luring Moore into one of his phony interviews for Who Is America?, Baron Cohen (inevitably) taunted Moore with a faux “pedophile detector.”

Moore had previously filed a $95 million lawsuit against Baron Cohen, claiming that the disclosure agreement be on the show was signed under false pretenses. He appealed the case after it was struck down last year, only to be rejected again by The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, per the Associated Press.

The three judges ruled that the segment was “clearly comedy,” writing in their decision, “Baron Cohen may have implied (despite his in character disclaimers of any belief that Judge Moore was a pedophile) that he believed Judge Moore’s accusers, but he did not imply the existence of any independent factual basis for that belief besides the obviously farcical pedophile detecting ‘device,’ which no reasonable person could believe to be an actual, functioning piece of technology.”

In a text message to the AP, Moore and his wife indicated that they would appeal again. “For far too long the American people have been subjected to the antics of Sasha [sic] Baron Cohen. His pusillanimous and fraudulent conduct must be stopped. We will appeal,” they said in their statement. Oh, so this whole thing has been on the behalf of the people? How noble! The American Experiment may be a success after all!