The First Amendment got a Christmas Eve gift when a federal judge dismissed Rep. Devin Nunes’ lawsuit/fundraiser that accused The Washington Post of conspiring with Democrats to defame him.
Devin Nunes Loses Another Defamation Lawsuit
Rep. Devin NunesCredit: CNN Screenshot
December 26, 2020

Nunes may be the country’s runner-up for Most Lawsuits Laughed Out Of Court, losing only to his adored Donald Trump. Law & Crime has the deets on this one, but here’s an overview:

Congressman Devin Nunes, a California Republican, on Christmas Eve received the legal equivalent of a lump of coal in his stocking: a federal district court judge in Washington, D.C. dismissed a defamation case Nunes launched against The Washington Post and writer Shane Harris. Thus, Nunes, the perennial loser of lawsuits, lost yet again. The case is but one of several Nunes has filed against the Post in a lengthy docket of litigation.

This latest suit sought $250 million in compensatory damages and $350 in punitive damages. The dismissal was the result of what L&C called “serious blunders” in the case.

In November, in a report on another Nunes defamation lawsuit against The Washington Post, Law & Crime ran down some of Nunes’ previous legal exploits:

Nunes’s lawsuits have repeatedly been rejected by courts, but the litigious congressman—who infamously attempted to sue a fake cow and parody of his own mom—appears hell-bent on continuing to pursue litigation that is almost certain to fail. Nunes’s latest lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, is based on two sentences in [WaPo reporter Ellen] Nakashima’s Nov. 9 article detailing how one of the congressman’s former staffers, Michael Ellis, came to be installed as NSA General Counsel earlier this month.

But while Nunes may be losing in court, he’s personally profiting by harassing the “lamestream media” and the “Deep State” legal system. In 2019, L&C noted, Nunes raised over $11.6 million in campaign funds–while his opponent, Phil Arballo (D), raised a mere $2.6 million. Nunes was re-elected in November.

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