Attorneys for a U.S Navy veteran said Tuesday that their client’s reputation and earning power were destroyed by a 2021 CNN report on war profiteers following the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Zachary Young, 49, sued the network over a Nov. 11, 2021 story by chief national security correspondent Alex Marquardt about how Afghans were being charged exorbitant fees for assistance in getting out of the country.

The security consultant, whose background includes a stint with the private military contractor Blackwater, says the four-minute video package falsely portrayed him as acting illegally.

Young, who heads his own Boca Raton, Fla.-based company, was hired by corporations to get their employees out of Afghanistan, advertising his services on LinkedIn. His attorneys said his annual income went from $350,000 a year to zero after the report ran on CNN’s channels and website.

The jury in the trial, heard in a Bay County, Fla., court, will be asked to determine whether CNN journalists acted with actual malice, which is defined as the publication of false information with reckless disregard of the truth. If jurors find CNN liable, they can award Young monetary damages for loss of business income and emotional distress.

Media companies typically settle defamation trials before they get to court, even if it’s expensive to do so. Last year Fox News paid $787.5 million to Dominion Voting Systems over false statements made about the company while reporting on President-elect Donald Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election. Fox wanted to avoid the embarrassment of its executives being called to the stand.

But CNN is standing by Marquardt’s report. The defamation case tests how the public perceives mainstream media amid constant right-wing attacks on its credibility.

The six-person jury is from Bay County, where 73% of the votes cast in the 2024 presidential election went to Trump, a constant critic of media outlets that don’t present him in a positive light.

The core of Young’s suit is CNN’s use of the term “black market” in an on-screen graphic and in a spoken introduction before Marquardt’s report, which first aired on “The Lead with Jake Tapper.” Young, the only person mentioned by name in the segment, says the graphic gave the false impression that he was involved in illegal activity and exploited Afghans.

In opening arguments at the trial, CNN’s attorney Dave Axelrod challenged Young’s claim that the report damaged his business or reputation. Axelrod said that many of the messages and contacts pertaining to Young’s activities have been deleted since the CNN story aired.

“You’re going to see that CNN’s reporting … was accurate and you’re not going to see a single witness who will testify they thought less of Mr. Young,” Axelrod said.

Axelrod also said Young’s activities were never described as illegal. The term “black market” was used in the piece to describe unregulated activity, he added, and was not directly applied to Young.

Young’s attorney Kyle Roche argued that the dictionary defines black market as illegal.

CNN anchor Tapper delivered an on-air apology to Young over the use of the term after he objected five months after the story aired.

Roche’s opening statement also focused on the internal communications and emails between Marquardt and his producers that disparaged Young as they aggressively pursued the story.

“I’m going to nail that Zachary Young mother———,” Marquardt wrote in one text.

“I’m going to hold you to that cowboy,” the producer replied.

Roche said emails and behind-the-scenes video footage show that “CNN took pleasure in casting [Young] as the villain for their hit piece.”

Even though CNN executives raised questions about the story — at one point saying it had “more holes than Swiss cheese” according to internal communications — it eventually passed through the network’s vetting process and was deemed ready for air, Axelrod noted.

“There is nothing false about Mr. Young in any of it,” Axelrod said.

Although Young did not sit for an interview with CNN, he did send text messages acknowledging the high cost for his services. The text shown in the segment also made clear that Young did business with corporate sponsors.

“If someone reaches out, we need to understand that if they have a sponsor behind them to be able to pay [evacuation] costs,” said one text in the report which was shown in court.

Young took the stand in the trial and spent most of the time answering questions about his family, military background and his security work for corporations.

CNN’s Marquardt is expected to testify in the trial, which resumes Wednesday.