WTOP's Matt Small reports on a defamation lawsuit that has been filed against a right-wing influencer over false claims he made related to the deadly midair crash near Reagan National Airport earlier this year

A transgender pilot is suing a popular right-wing influencer after he falsely connected her to the midair collision that killed 67 people near Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, in January.

Jo Ellis, a helicopter pilot with the Virginia Army National Guard, filed the defamation lawsuit against social media personality Matt Wallace in a Colorado federal court on Wednesday.

Her attorneys argue that Wallace — who made a series of online posts incorrectly identifying Ellis as the pilot of the U.S. Army Black Hawk chopper involved in the Jan. 29 crash, and suggested the tragedy was a “trans terror attack” — intentionally made the false claims to financially profit off an anti-transgender narrative.

Shortly after the American Airlines jet and Black Hawk helicopter crashed over the Potomac River, Wallace posted on his X account — where he has more than 2 million followers — that he’d learned the Black Hawk pilot was “a transgender,” according to Ellis’ complaint. That post also contained a photo of Ellis.

Wallace deleted this initial post after it went viral, the lawsuit continues, but went on to publish more false information targeting Ellis — including another X post containing her photos, in which he also said a transgender Black Hawk pilot “wrote a long...

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