House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes, a frequent target of mockery, derision and sometimes fake news, reportedly intends to file more defamation suits sometime soon — these ones aimed squarely at the media.
In an exclusive Friday interview with Breitbart, the 16-year House veteran revealed that he intends to sue CNN and The Daily Beast for running “demonstrably false and scandalous stories” essentially accusing him of having conspired with an allegedly corrupt former Ukrainian prosecutor to affect the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Published earlier in the week, the outlets’ reports highlighted dubious claims from Lev Parnas, one of two shady Ukrainian figures who were reportedly arrested in October for alleged violations of campaign finance law and who’ve been accused of a string of other “shadowy dealings.”
Did Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman have shadowy dealings with the Maduro regime? https://t.co/9MhLUu4Q4l
— Moisés Naím (@MoisesNaim) November 16, 2019
According to Parnas’ attorney, last year Nunes traveled to Ukraine in the hopes of obtaining dirt on 2020 Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden from former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was allegedly booted from his post in 2016 because of Biden (learn more here).
But according to Nunes, these are lies — and the fact that CNN and The Daily Beast published these lies without offering any critical pushback is unforgivable.
“These demonstrably false and scandalous stories published by the Daily Beast and CNN are the perfect example of defamation and reckless disregard for the truth,” he said in a statement to Breitbart.
He further claimed that Parnas’ attorney had reached out to multiple news media outlets with these allegations — but that only CNN and The Daily Beast (arguably two of America’s most demonstrably left-wing, partisan media outlets) had chosen to run with them.
“Some political operative offered these fake stories to at least five different media outlets before finding someone irresponsible enough to publish them,” he said. “I look forward to prosecuting these cases, including the media outlets, as well as the sources of their fake stories, to the fullest extent of the law. I intend to hold the Daily Beast and CNN accountable for their actions. They will find themselves in court soon after Thanksgiving.”
Whether the suits stand a chance in court remains unknown. What’s known is that The Daily Beast seemingly made no attempts to speak with the ranking member about Parvas’ allegations against him. However, CNN did.
“Over the past two weeks, CNN approached Nunes on two occasions and reached out to his communications staff to get comment for this story,” the left-wing outlet’s report reads. “In the Capitol on Nov. 14, as CNN began to ask a question about the trip to Vienna, Nunes interjected and said, ‘I don’t talk to you in this lifetime or the next lifetime.'”
“At any time, on any question,” he reportedly added.
Reportedly questioned by CNN again this Thursday, he replied similarly.
“To be perfectly clear, I don’t acknowledge any questions from you in this lifetime or the next lifetime. I don’t acknowledge any question from you ever,” he reportedly said.
Because of his refusal to speak with CNN and refute Parnas’ allegations, the network could perhaps argue in court that it was left with no other option but to report the allegations, given as no denial was ever provided.
Conversely, Nunes could argue that he too had no other choice, given as CNN has a proven tendency of distorting the truth.
When questioned in July of 2018 about certain matters, for instance, he told CNN’s Manu Raju that the outlet is the “leading Democratic Party propaganda” and later issued a formal statement accusing the network of adhering “to the Democrats’ comical talking points.”
Yet when reporting on his interaction with the congressman, Raju neglected to mention the formal statement:
Also when asked my office gave them this quote…”CNN’s slavish adherence to the Democrats’ comical talking points is an amazing sight to behold.”…..Guess what? They refused to run the statement…This is another great example of “Fake and fraudulent news” https://t.co/ML7z0etx9T
— Devin Nunes (@DevinNunes) July 24, 2018
Watch Raju’s report to CNN’s Anderson Cooper below:
(Source: CNN)
If indeed filed against CNN and The Daily Beast, Nunes’ latest suit will add to a growing list of lawsuits he’s filed in recent months against a wide swath of entities ranging from media outlets like Esquire and Hearst to social media networks such as Twitter.
Filed last spring, the latter suit accused Twitter of “shadow-banning” conservatives, censoring non-establishment viewpoints and allowing fake parody counts to slander him.
“This is the first of many and what we’re doing here is we’re actually going after Twitter first because they are the main proliferators and they spread fake news and the slanderous news,” the congressman said at the time to Fox News host Sean Hannity.
“The case that we are basically making is that this was an orchestrated effort. So people were targeting me. There were anonymous accounts that were developed,” he continued. “And, look, there’s not supposed to be — these accounts aren’t supposed to exist. Twitter says that they don’t have accounts that do this.”
He added that the suit was “the first of many lawsuits that are coming.” It’s clear now that he wasn’t kidding.
Listen:
Source: Fox News
Read his Twitter suit below:
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V. Saxena is a staff writer for BizPac Review with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University.
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