Devin Nunes’ lawsuit over Iowa farm story called a ‘fishing expedition’ by Esquire Magazine
An attorney for the magazine Esquire called Rep. Devin Nunes’ lawsuit against the company a “fishing expedition” for a journalist’s sources on Friday as he asked a federal judge to dismiss one of the four lawsuits the congressman filed against news organizations over the past 13 months.
The lawsuit, unfolding in Iowa’s Northern District Court, centers on a piece by journalist Ryan Lizza that Esquire published in September 2018 drawing attention to Nunes’ family moving a dairy business to Iowa. Nunes’ father and brother also are suing Esquire over the story, which Lizza wrote after attempting to visit their dairy in Sibley, Iowa.
Jonathan Donnellan, an attorney for Lizza and Esquire publisher Hearst Corporation, said at a hearing conducted by phone that the article was not defamatory as Nunes alleged and that public officials should expect scrutiny from an independent press.
“Public officials should expect that part of the public trust that they hold is that they will be subject to examination and questions,” Donnellan said.“The responses to that should not be lawsuits for tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Nunes, R-Tulare, in Virginia courts also is suing CNN, The Washington Post and The Fresno Bee, alleging that news stories they published defamed him. The news organizations have filed motions to dismiss the lawsuits or move them to California, where Nunes lives.
Sacramento-based McClatchy, the parent company of The Fresno Bee, has called Nunes’ lawsuit against the news organization a “baseless attack on local journalism.”
Nunes has not filed a lawsuit against a news organization in a California court. California has a so-called anti-SLAPP law meant to discourage people from filing lawsuits that could intimidate free speech. It allows judges to quickly dismiss certain cases and compel plaintiffs to pay legal fees.
Nunes alleges the Esquire article, which also discussed Nunes’ rise to national renown as an ally of President Donald Trump, defamed him and that various actors conspired to damage his reelection campaign that year.
Steven Biss, Nunes’ lawyer, said during the hearing the congressman was harmed by the Esquire piece because implications of unethical behavior by Nunes could have resulted in congressional ethics committees punishing Nunes.
Nunes did not face a congressional ethics investigation as a result of Lizza’s story.
Biss also argued that surrounding details in the story — including its publication date about a month before the 2018 election — show that Lizza and Hearst acted with malice, a necessary legal argument for Nunes’ suit to be successful since he’s a public figure. Biss complained that Lizza’s girlfriend, who is also a journalist, shared the article on Twitter.
Biss said Lizza would need to tell who his sources were in the story, since Lizza cited some anonymous sources, during the discovery process.
Donnellan seized on that in his arguments.
“So this lawsuit is a fishing expedition,” Donnellan said. “It’s meant to keep Esquire, Hearst and others from publishing anything about Devin Nunes.”
Lizza and Hearst also asked the court, in addition to dismissing the case, to make Nunes pay their attorney fees. They cited California laws discouraging frivolous lawsuits they argue still have bearing over the case in Iowa. Biss argued California law did not apply to the case.
Judge C.J. Williams, who did not interject throughout most of the hearing, said he would consider the arguments and make his decision on dismissal at a later date.
Aside from the four lawsuits against news organizations, Nunes is suing Twitter, anonymous people who criticize him on social media, a Republican political strategist and the investigative research firm Fusion GPS. A federal judge dismissed the Fusion GPS lawsuit, and Nunes has filed it again with a newly amended complaint, court records show.
Last year, Nunes filed and then dropped a lawsuit against a retired Tulare County farmer who challenged Nunes’ description of himself on California election ballots as a farmer. Nunes has served in Congress since 2003.
This story was originally published April 24, 2020 at 4:51 PM with the headline "Devin Nunes’ lawsuit over Iowa farm story called a ‘fishing expedition’ by Esquire Magazine."
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