Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters] Sarah Palin is now positive for the coronavirus. Palin was set to commence a defamation case against The New York Times this Monday.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, Manhattan who presided over the case, announced Palin’s positive result.

Palin was referred to as “She is naturally unvaccinated”, the judge stated.

Palin will be tested again Monday morning to decide if jury selection should begin on Tuesday or if the trial should be postponed until February 3.

Rakoff claimed Palin’s positive blood test was a result of an at-home test that had lower reliability than those administered in courthouse and necessary for trial.

Palin (57), has accused James Bennet and the Times of ruining her reputation. Palin published a June 14, 2017 editorial in which she linked to an Arizona mass shooting that left six dead and wounded Gabby Giffords.

This editorial was headlined “America’s Lethal Politics” and was published following a shooting at an Alexandria baseball practice where U.S. Representative Steve Scalise (a high ranking Republican from Louisiana) was injured.

The report stated that “the connection to political incitement” was evident between the shooting of 2011 and a map distributed by Palin’s party action committee, which placed 20 Democrats, including Giffords, under “stylized crosses hairs.”

The Times immediately corrected the article, stating that it incorrectly claimed that politics and the shooting of 2011 were connected. Bennet also stated that he didn’t intend to blame Palin.

Palin claimed that the material in dispute fit Bennet’s “preconceived narrative” and that he knew what his words meant.

The trial should last for five days.