Devin Nunes’ legal setbacks pile up, but his lawsuits go on with appeals and new filings
California Rep. Devin Nunes has had little success in the battery of lawsuits he filed against media organizations and critics, but his efforts are running up legal bills for the groups he considers his adversaries.
Take, for instance, the Republican political consultant Liz Mair.
Nunes, R-Tulare, is suing her in two Virginia cases alleging she conspired to spread dirt on him in the months leading up to the 2018 election. Mair filed motions to dismiss both lawsuits against her, essentially saying Nunes’ claims were invalid.
A Virginia judge agreed with her in one case last month, but Nunes’ attorney, Steven Biss, made it clear they’re not letting her off the hook.
Immediately after the judge said at an Aug. 20 hearing that she planned to dismiss Mair from the lawsuit, Biss asked if the judge would allow him to file an amended complaint, according to a court transcript.
The judge granted the request, keeping Mair in court for a lawsuit that has dragged on since April 2019. She expects Nunes to appeal any decision in her favor in either lawsuit.
“I have no doubt that Rep. Nunes will seek to amend his complaint and/or appeal the decision” if the court rules against him again, Mair said in a written statement.
Seven lawsuits
Altogether, Nunes has filed seven lawsuits against media organizations, anonymous online critics, and other political actors. The only case that has concluded is one his campaign filed and dropped against a retired farmer in Nunes’ congressional district who challenged the congressman’s description of himself as a farmer in materials sent to voters.
Aside from Mair, judges have dismissed or greatly diminished three of the cases. Each time, Nunes appealed the decision or attempted to file an amended complaint to restart the case.
Those lawsuits are:
Twitter: A Virginia judge in June ruled the congressman could not sue Twitter for defamation based on tweets written by anonymous users. The judge issued the ruling a second time in July because Biss did not agree to it, and then in August rejected Biss’s request to file a new complaint against the company.
Hearst Magazines: Nunes’ case against a journalist and the owner of Esquire Magazine — in which he claimed they defamed him in an article about his family farm moving to Iowa and possibly using undocumented workers — was dismissed in a federal court in Iowa last month. Nunes and Biss have filed to appeal the decision.
Fusion GPS: Nunes’ complaint against Fusion GPS, the investigative research firm best known for developing the so-called Steele Dossier containing unverified tips regarding President Donald Trump and Russia, was dismissed earlier this year by a federal judge in Virginia. Nunes and Biss filed an amended complaint, which is still pending in court.
Nunes also is suing McClatchy, the owner of the largest newspaper in his district, The Fresno Bee, in one of the lawsuits that names Mair as a defendant. McClatchy has called the suit a “baseless attack on local journalism.”
The cases date back to Nunes’ ascent to a national profile as a defender of Trump against Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Nunes in most of the cases contends the media organizations conspired to harm Trump and Nunes’ own 2018 re-election bid, which he won by the narrowest margin of his political career.
Two of the lawsuits, against CNN and The Washington Post, center on news coverage related to Trump’s impeachment. The news organizations have filed motions to dismiss the cases, arguing their coverage was not defamatory.
Is Nunes trying to win?
Defamation attorneys say they are confused by Nunes’ strategy and unsure what he’s trying to accomplish.
“I think he’s trying to win against large media defendants, I just don’t think he’s very good at it,” said Steven Krieger, a Virginia defamation attorney. “But winning may be a secondary strategy for him as the lawsuits bring attention to an issue that’s important to him.”
“He’s not good at winning this type of litigation, but he’s clearly good at winning elections,” he added. “He could be doing this as a mechanism to rally his base.”
Nunes, who has served in Congress since 2003, built a national fundraising base since he became known as a Trump ally.
One of his best fundraising days this year came on March 2, when he announced a lawsuit against The Washington Post. Nunes’ campaign hauled in $144,000 that day and $80,000 on the next, according to campaign finance reports.
He collected $4.5 million in the second quarter of this year, making him one of the top five fundraisers in Congress and helping him amass more than $10 million for his 2020 reelection campaign.
This fall, he’s running against Fresno Democrat Phil Arballo, who raised about $1.5 million the first half of the year.
Paul Levy, an attorney for Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, had a different theory about the lawsuits, contending it’s “likely true that this is an exercise in intimidation.”
Levy has filed briefs on behalf of Public Citizen in Nunes’ suit against Twitter and two anonymous Twitter accounts known as Devin Nunes’ Cow and Devin Nunes’ Mom, supporting the accounts’ rights to remain anonymous.
“I think it’s now clear that if you say negative things about Devin Nunes, you darn well better have libel coverage,” Levy said. “Because he has a thin skin, he has a quick trigger finger, and he has no compunction about filing lawsuits for either vindicating his reputation or intimidating his critics.”
Neither Nunes’ office nor Biss returned a request for comment.
California congressman sues in Virginia
Nunes has not sued a media organization in his home state of California, where state law allows people to obtain early dismissal of un-meritorious lawsuits that have the potential to chill free speech. Judges also can order that all of a defendant’s legal fees have to be paid by the person who filed the lawsuit.
That’s important because even if a lawsuit is eventually dismissed, powerful people can use the courts to drive up attorney costs with exorbitant discovery requests and delay tactics.
Nunes’ lawsuits target several people who don’t have the deep pockets of national media organizations.
His lawsuit against Twitter also seeks damages from the authors of two anonymous social media accounts who mock him under the personas “Devin Nunes’ Mom” and “Devin Nunes’ Cow.”
Nunes has not served them with the lawsuit because he has been unable to identify them. Each account remains a defendant in the lawsuit, and each is raising money for a legal defense. They’ve compiled about $83,000 in donations, and declined to say how much they’ve spent.
The author behind Devin Nunes’ Mom doesn’t believe Nunes has any chance of winning in court, and thinks “he is perfectly aware of that.”
“Devin Nunes will not hold up well to legal scrutiny, and that scrutiny is likely forthcoming. .... His house of cards will tumble,” the writer told McClatchy, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the lawsuit.
This story was originally published September 14, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Devin Nunes’ legal setbacks pile up, but his lawsuits go on with appeals and new filings."
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