Jonathan Stempel and Jody Gooy

NEW YORK (Reuters), The ex-editor at the New York Times of 2017 who was responsible for Sarah Palin’s defamation case against the newspaper Wednesday, denied that Palin tried to blame him for the deadly 2011 shooting which left Gabrielle Giffords, a former U.S. representative, seriously hurt.

James Bennet stated during the trial’s fifth day, that he did not make changes to an editorial draft, which was later corrected by the Times, to hold former Alaska governor and Republican U.S. vice president candidate 2008, nor her political action committee for the shooting.

Do you really intend to inflict any injury on Ms. Palin through your editing of the draft? David Axelrod of the Times asked Bennet to answer in Manhattan federal Court. Bennet is a former editor on the Times editorial page.

Bennet replied, “No, it wasn’t,”

Bennet did not respond “no” to a question asking if he was trying to blame Palin and the political action committee.

This trial will test the long-standing legal protections that U.S. media have against claims of defamation by public figures.

Palin sued The New York Times over an editorial published June 14, 2017 about gun control. It also lamented the degrading of political discourse. The editorial was published after the shooting on a Virginia baseball diamond in which U.S. Representative Steve Scalise (a Louisiana Republican) was injured.

This editorial was about the shooting that Jared Lee Loughner committed in a parking lot in Arizona on January 11, 2011, resulting in six deaths. Giffords (a Democratic member of Congress at the time) was one of those who were among the wounded.

The map was circulated by Palin’s political-action committee and placed Giffords, along with 19 others Democrats, in danger.

Bennet incorrectly added language to the draft of a colleague that stated “the connection to political incitement” between the Giffords shooting and the map.

On Wednesday, Bennet testified that he used the language under pressure and without having researched the topic, believing that “atmospheres of so highly charged political rhetoric” could lead to such incidents.

Bennet denied that the language was added to Loughner’s crosshairs map.

Bennet stated, “If it was causing the violence, then I would use the word ‘cause’.” “I should have slowed down.”

The Times corrected the editorial but did not include Palin. Palin’s lawyers repeatedly pointed out this omission and attempted to argue that the Times corrected it too slowly.

On Tuesday, Bennet stated that while the Times doesn’t apologize for its errors but that he believed that Palin was able to take that correction as an apology.

Bennet stated Wednesday that he regretted the decision “pretty much every day” since.

Palin must demonstrate that Bennet, the Times and Palin acted with “actual malice”, meaning that they either knew or recklessly ignored the truth.

Her signal was that if she loses at trial, her appeal will challenge a 1964 U.S. Supreme Court case, New York Times v. Sullivan. This landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling established actual malice.

Palin’s lawyers have summoned Bennet to be a witness. Because plaintiffs’ lawyers typically call witnesses in support of their clients, the trial is rare. Palin is expected testify in the trial.