I guess that suing people for defamation is all the rage now, and Devin Nunes, one of the moo-tfiful people, doesn’t intend to get left out. No, siree. He’s going to file his defamation suit so that he can be cool like E. Jean Carroll and Dominion Voting Systems. And get big bucks settlements. Let’s see what happens with respect to the latter premise.

If the name Steven Biss is ringing any bells, he’s assisted Nunes in legal matters before. Nunes, as you may recall, has a particular hard on for CNN. He’s sued them a number of times before. This is from Tech Dirt in March:

At some point, you have to wonder if judges are going to start slapping sanctions on former Representative Devin Nunes and his SLAPP-happy vexatious litigator, Steven Biss. We’ve covered their many escapades in filing highly questionable defamation cases against basically any major media organization that so much as lightly criticizes Nunes (and also… a satirical internet cow). Given its outsized roles in the minds of culture warriors who wish to insist that it is biased against them, it’s perhaps little surprise that the Nunes/Biss superduo has sued CNN numerous times. They also have a history of losing those cases.

The most recent one was late last year, when Nunes sued CNN (again) and its host Jake Tapper, after Tapper called out a bunch of Republicans, including Nunes, for how they responded to the attack on Paul Pelosi in his San Francisco home.

As we highlighted at the time, the complaint listed out five statements that Nunes claimed were defamatory:

1 “He [referring to President Donald Trump], at least, did condemn the attack on Paul Pelosi, as did House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, as did Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell”

2 “But you know what, far too many other Republicans and Conservative leaders are out there instead spreading insane, offensive and false conspiracy theories, such as the complete and utter lie, the deranged smear that Paul Pelosi and the attacker, the man who hit him in the head with a hammer, were in a sexual relationship”

3 “It’s hard to fathom the kind of mind that hears of a tragedy, like what happened to 82 year-old Paul Pelosi, and decides to traffic in this filth. But, sadly, Donald Trump Jr. is hardly alone. Former Republican Congressman and Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, who now runs Trump’s social media company, Truth Social, shared this Halloween image [link to truth] with the words, ‘at least this guy has his clothes on.’ Nunes also reposted this meme [link to retruth], using a poster for the gay romantic comedy Bros, twisting it into a smear of Paul Pelosi. And, again, the man who tried to bash Paul Pelosi’s head in with a hammer. Words fail.”

4 “What is wrong with these people?”

5 “In addition to being an inhuman and inhumane response to a tragedy, it’s a lie … Pelosi did not know the suspect.”

As we noted at the time, many of these statements weren’t even about Nunes in the first place, and things like “what is wrong with these people” is so obviously not defamatory (it’s just a pure statement of opinion) that no good defamation lawyer would ever try to claim that it was. We wondered if this would lead to even more sanctions against Biss.

Last week, the case was thrown out, but not because the the claims are so weak, but for an even more ridiculous reason: Biss filed it in a court that has no jurisdiction over the matter. For unclear reasons, he filed the case in Florida (perhaps because that’s where Truth Social, the flailing social media site started by former President Trump that news reports suggest he’s looking to abandon, is headquartered).

And now we have the Trump Media v. Washington Post matter. I can only speculate that Mr. Biss gets his money up front, or at least enough of it to make it worth his while.

And the ripples are starting to go out from the center of the pond after this wanna be bombshell today. I say “wanna be” because with the exception of Twitter and bloggers such as yours truly, this lawsuit is not exactly setting the media world ablaze.

But there is this notable side action, which you might find amusing.

This is getting too labyrinthine and twisted for me. Now we’ve got Mike Flynn and QAnon in the mix? Seriously?

I’ll just keep posting whatever tidbits I find and maybe, like a jigsaw puzzle, we can figure out a way to stick the pieces together and see what’s formed when we do.

I hope Devin doesn’t find it defamatory if we merely speculate that maybe he needs to find a deep pocket somewhere if and when Truth Social folds in the fall, which has been predicted. Now a great many things are predicted and don’t come to pass, but some of them do, and unless Truth Social can find a new means of righting itself financially this summer, it may very well go dark over there come September.

We will sit here and watch. The deadline for the Trump Media merger with DWAC is September, 2023. Unless something happens to change that deadline, that’s the date that’s going to tell the story.

Help keep the site running, consider supporting.

6 COMMENTS

  1. Good Lord, you need a flow charts and colored post-it-notes to even begin to understand all the lawyer work going on around Trump and Republicans in general. Blue arrows for lawsuits directed at a reThug and red ones for those they instigate. Oh, and 8 x 10 color glossies. Hell, I think I’m talking about a murder board.

    11
    • 8 x 10 colored glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of
      Each one explaining what each one was, to be used as evidence…

      • The feds should just send in Officer Obey to Mar A Lago and within a day all evidence would be found and ready for the judge! Thanks for the smile. After having just written and posted a second article today (about Ukraine – another serious topic) I need a break and a visit to Alice’s Restaurant is just the kind of “food” I need right now!

  2. Well, Nunes is going to have a major problem with a defamation suit simply because–unlike Ms Carroll and Dominion Voting Systems–Nunes *IS* a public figure. Ms Carroll ONLY became a “public figure” following Trump’s defamation of her (which was mainly the result of her initially private case against Trump) and, while Dominion does a “public” service, the company itself is NOT a “public figure” (unlike social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook and even Truth Social).
    As long as someone is responding to a public figure (eg, a former member of Congress heading up a social media platform), the bar for a defamation case is MUCH higher for the person alleging defamation.

  3. These folks provide the full employment act for scumball lawyers. It is no longer just idiots on parade, it is stupid fucking idiots on parade.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

The maximum upload file size: 128 MB. You can upload: image, audio, video, document, spreadsheet, interactive, text, archive, code, other. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop files here