Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's Ted Boutrous helped convince a San Diego judge to toss a defamation suit against MSNBC host Rachel Maddow after reporting a conservative news outlet had ties to the Kremlin. 

In an order Friday, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Bashant of the Southern District of California granted a motion to strike the defamation claims brought by One America News Network's parent company, Herring Networks Inc.

OAN sued Maddow in September after the political commentator aired a segment discussing a Daily Beast article asserting that Russian state-owned news outlet Sputnik had a OAN reporter on its payroll. Maddow said the Russian government paid the journalist to produce "pro-Putin propaganda," according to the complaint. 

In her opinion dismissing the lawsuit with prejudice, Bashant described Maddow's general tenor as "surprise and glee at the unexpectedness of the story" and noted that she was cracking jokes and laughing.

"For her to exaggerate the facts and call OAN Russian propaganda was consistent with her tone up to that point, and the Court finds a reasonable viewer would not take the statement as factual given this context," Bashant wrote. "The context of Maddow's statement shows reasonable viewers would consider the contested statement to be her opinion. A reasonable viewer would not actually think OAN is paid Russian propaganda, instead, he or she would follow the facts of the Daily Beast article; that OAN and Sputnik share a reporter and both pay this reporter to write articles. Anything beyond this is Maddow's opinion or her exaggeration of the facts."

A representative for Gibson Dunn declined to comment on the opinion, as did a spokesperson for MSNBC

Miller Barondess' Louis Miller and Amnon Siegel in Los Angeles, who represented OAN, did not immediately return a request for comment.