Devin Nunes sues Washington Post. It’s his 7th lawsuit in 12 months
California Republican Rep. Devin Nunes on Monday filed his seventh lawsuit in 12 months alleging that he was the victim of defamation or conspiracy, this time suing The Washington Post.
Nunes, R-Tulare, in a complaint filed Monday in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Virginia alleges a Feb. 21 news story describing an intelligence briefing given to members of Congress regarding Russia’s perceived preference for President Donald Trump’s re-election was part of a long-running effort at The Post to damage Nunes’ reputation.
Trump who counts Nunes among his closest allies in Congress, also has an at-times adversarial relationship with The Washington Post, referring to it as the “Amazon Washington Post” because it is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Nunes in the complaint alleges Bezos bought The Washington Post in 2013 “for the purpose of using WaPo’s mighty pen to influence federal elections,” that Bezos is “desperate to defame the president” and that Post reporters coordinated actions with House Democrats to “impugn (Nunes’) reputation and undermine his relationship with the president.”
The complaint is signed by Nunes’ attorney Steven Biss, who has represented the congressman in his recent litigation against media companies. It refers to one Washington Post reporter Shane Harris as a “puppet of the FBI and CIA,” and asserts that Nunes suffered insult, pain, embarrassment, humiliation and mental suffering because of the news story.
Biss in the complaint writes that Nunes is seeking $250 million in damages from The Post.
Bezos bought The Post seven years ago for $250 million, saying at the time, “The values of The Post do not need changing. The duty of the paper is to the readers, not the owners.”
Washington Post spokeswoman Kristine Coratti Kelly said the newspaper “stands behind the reporting of Shane Harris and his colleagues. We will vigorously defend our work against the claims made in Rep. Nunes’s lawsuit.”
A few paragraphs in the Post story on the intelligence briefing focus on Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, saying Trump learned about the briefing from Nunes.
The Post cites one anonymous source for that information. The story cites multiple unidentified administration officials in describing an exchange in which Trump reportedly vented that he learned about the briefing from Nunes instead of White House staff.
The meeting reportedly precipitated the resignation of Trump’s acting Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire.
“This is ongoing nonsense, we’re on Russia-gate 9.0,” Nunes said on a Fox news show Sunday previewing his latest lawsuit.
“I never talked to President Trump about (former Acting Director of National Intelligence) Admiral (Joseph) Maguire, I didn’t go to the White House, none of this was true, it was all invented by someone,” Nunes continued. “I don’t know if the Washington Post was conspiring with the Democrats to make up this fake news story, but they’ll have a chance to meet me next week in federal court.”
The Post story says reporters reached out to Nunes’ office for comment but did not hear back. Nunes has publicly said he has a policy of not speaking to “mainstream” news media outlets.
Nunes a year ago began suing media organizations and critics, alleging in the cases that various organizations conspired to damage his reputation.
McClatchy, the parent company of The Fresno Bee, is among the organizations he is suing. Nunes alleges he was defamed by a news story about an employee’s lawsuit against a winery in which he holds a financial stake. McClatchy has called the lawsuit a “baseless attack” on local journalism and is fighting the lawsuit.
Nunes also is suing Twitter, CNN and Esquire Magazine. In the Twitter case, Nunes is suing the authors of two anonymous social media accounts that mock him under their satirical names “Devin Nunes’ Cow” and “Devin Nunes’ Mom.”
Nunes withdrew one lawsuit his campaign filed against a retired farmer in his congressional district. The farmer was among several people who contested Nunes’ description of himself as a farmer on ballots that went to California voters in 2018.
Last month, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit Nunes filed against the investigative research firm Fusion GPS and a left-leaning advocacy group called the Campaign for Accountability.
This story was originally published March 2, 2020 at 4:33 PM.
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