Mr. Robinson’s campaign for governor of North Carolina has been in crisis since the report, which the lawsuit calls “recklessly false.”

North Carolina Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson has filed a lawsuit against CNN following the network’s report alleging that he posted explicit racial and sexual comments on a pornography website’s message board. Robinson called the report reckless and defamatory.

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor, announced Tuesday that he was suing CNN for its report last month tying him to a series of racist, disturbing and sexually graphic comments on an online pornography forum.