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EXCLUSIVE– Attorney Stacey Evans, an elected Democrat who regularly watches MSNBC, said in an interview Thursday that Rachel Maddow’s treatment of her client in the "uterus collector" case was "preposterous" and "disappointing."
NBCUniversal, the parent company of NBC News and MSNBC, last week formally settled a $30 million lawsuit filed by Evans’ client, Georgia gynecologist Dr. Mahendra Amin, who was the subject of a report claiming he performed unnecessary hysterectomies at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) center.
An NBC News article in September 2020 which cited a whistleblower's claim that Amin was performing unneeded hysterectomies while providing medical care to women detained at the Irwin County Detention Center started the saga, and MSNBC quickly followed with a series of on-air reports.
Nicolle Wallace’s "Deadline: White House," "All In with Chris Hayes" and "The Rachel Maddow Show" all ran with a disparaging "uterus collector" label for Amin, but Evans feels the network’s biggest star is the one who really took things too far.
Attorney Stacey Evans is a State Representative for Georgia House District 57, which includes portions of Atlanta.
"It was Rachel Maddow who tried to tie Dr. Amin as the next chapter in the continuing saga, essentially, of mistreatment of immigrants by the Donald Trump administration. And she opened that block by talking about child separation policies and this former Trump administrator who had been tracking women's menstrual cycles — just some really sick stuff — and then to say that Dr. Amin was the next chapter in this saga, it was preposterous the way she did it," Evans told Fox News Digital.
"It was disappointing, and she is a very smart, very hardworking journalist — no dispute," she continued. "It’s disappointing that any media would be so reckless."
In addition to being a practicing attorney, Evans is currently a State Representative for House District 57, which includes portions of Atlanta. She lost the 2018 Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nomination to Stacey Abrams.
Evans, who called MSNBC a "default" channel for Democrats like herself, said she watches the news with a "higher degree of skepticism" than most Americans because she has seen behind the curtain through various defamation cases throughout her legal career.
"What they did was so egregious, in my opinion, in continuing to go with these statements that he was a uterus collector, that he had performed mass hysterectomies when they had in their hands — all the data they could muster was two hysterectomies, and they knew that," Evans said.
"They know that ICE had also found those two in their records and said that they had found them to be medically necessary through their internal procedures," she continued. "Classic example of following sensationalism as opposed to facts."
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. (Screenshot/MSNBC)
Evans, who represented Amin along with co-counsel Scott Grubman, believes MSNBC’s anti-Trump coverage leading up to the 2020 presidential election played a role in the network’s conduct and eagerness to tie Amin to Trump immigration policy.
"For example, Rachel Maddow, when she's in her planning meeting with her team, she's saying, ‘If it's true, we should go with it, but I don't want to assume it's true,’" Evans said, noting that Maddow was "expressing some doubt" according to documents revealed in discovery.
"Eight minutes later, according to the sort of tick-tock internal minutes that they took, eight minutes later, she's like, ‘Yeah, let's go with it, and it's going to be the A block,’" Evans said.
Evans said it was "frustrating to see how reckless" Maddow and her MSNBC colleagues were when spoiling the reputation of Amin, who is an immigrant himself.
MSNBC PARENT COMPANY NBCUNIVERSAL SETTLES ‘UTERUS COLLECTOR’ LAWSUIT AHEAD OF HIGH-STAKES TRIAL
MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace and Chris Hayes were swept up in a defamation lawsuit filed by Georgia gynecologist Dr. Mahendra Amin. (Left to right: (Photo by Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images). (Photo by: Lloyd Bishop/NBC via Getty Images). (Photo by Steve Zak Photography/FilmMagic))
"It’s very, very sad," Evans said. "Seeing her go from skepticism about whether the story was true to making it her A-block and tying someone who was a private doctor, tying him to Trump administration policies, and using that as her A-block in eight minutes, at least that's what it appeared to be on paper, was very, very, very disappointing."
Judge Lisa Godbey Wood of the Southern District of Georgia previously ruled that a jury could reasonably find actual malice and the trial was set to begin April 22, in Waycross, Georgia. In light of the settlement agreement, the court canceled the scheduled trial.
Judge Wood also previously ruled that multiple statements were proven false, noting "undisputed evidence has established" that "there were no mass hysterectomies or high numbers of hysterectomies at the facility," and "Dr. Amin performed only two hysterectomies on female detainees from the ICDC" and the doctor is not a "uterus collector."
MSNBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. NBCUniversal has not commented publicly on the settlement agreement.
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Fox News Digital’s Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
