George Clooney's Human Rights Org Sued for Defamation, and the Lawsuit Is Quoting Him Back at Himself

George Clooney’s human rights organization, The Sentry, is facing a defamation lawsuit from Liberian steel magnate Ahmed Gadalla, and the court documents are not holding back. Gadalla claims the org published a report falsely accusing him of fraud, money laundering, and funding Russian mercenaries, all without proper fact-checking, and that it refused to publish his response. Clooney co-founded The Sentry in 2016 with John Prendergast to expose war crimes and corruption.

The sharpest twist? The lawsuit uses Clooney’s own history of calling out media outlets over their reporting on his family, arguing that The Sentry applied a different standard when the story was about someone else. The docs reportedly include the line,“The cover-up is always worse.”There’s also a claim that The Sentry asked the EU to sanction Gadalla so he could be charged in Libya. A rep for Clooney had no immediate comment.

So what happens when a Hollywood star’s do-gooder project gets accused of the exact thing it investigates? Does advocacy journalism get a pass for good intentions, or should the same rules apply to everyone? Drop your take in the comments.