AMID SECOND “DEFAMATION” LAWSUIT FILED
by Sharon Rondeau
(Apr. 8, 2019) — In a lower-right-hand inset just after 9:00 p.m. EDT, Fox News announced an appearance on “Hannity” Monday night of Rep. Devin Nunes, who filed a $150 million lawsuit against news service The McClatchy Company, claiming a “conspiracy” to defame him.
McClatchy owns The Fresno Bee and several other West Coast publications and claims it produces “extraordinary journalism.”
Nunes represents California’s 22nd congressional district in an ever-shrinking number of Republican congressmen from the Golden State. The state legislature’s composition has mirrored that metamorphosis in recent elections.
Last month, Nunes sued Twitter fro $250 million, alleging “shadow-banning” and defamation, a higher standard Nunes must meet as a public figure if he is to succeed. Monday’s suit alleges a conspiracy between a Democrat operative, who he also sued in the Twitter action, and a McClatchy reporter to “spread a variety of untruthful and misleading smears,” according to Fox.
Nunes, who formerly served as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and is now its ranking member, declared early last year that Republicans on the committee found no evidence that anyone in the Trump campaign “colluded” with Russia, as alleged by the FBI in 2016. He claims that McClatchy’s negative reportage, specifically in a May 2018 article, contained knowingly false and malicious information, according to the Fox report.
The FBI’s stated suspicions of Trump-Russia collusion led to the agency’s launch of a counterintelligence operation into the campaign without providing the customary defensive briefing which extended to a media effort to cast Trump and his aides as acting as agents of the Russian government.
A 22-month investigation by former FBI Director Robert Mueller as a “Special Counsel” followed the FBI’s initial effort following the firing of then-Director James Comey. The probe concluded on March 22 without finding evidence of “collusion,” Attorney General William Barr reported on March 24.
Democrats have vowed to continue investigating Trump; his grown children, who with the exception of Ivanka Trump, now run the Trump Organization; Trump’s past business dealings and finances; and to obtain six years of his tax returns.
On yesterday’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Nunes told host Maria Bartiromo that Intel Committee Republicans have prepared eight criminal referrals naming individuals within the DOJ and FBI who they believe leaked classified information to the media regarding the “collusion” investigation, lied to Congress, misled the FISA court to obtain surveillance warrants on Trump aides and participated in a conspiracy to undermine candidate and later, President Trump.
Update, 9:42 p.m. EDT: In his interview with Hannity, Nunes said that the investigation the Intel Committee conducted over more than two years shows that “Democratic congressional staffers” were “colluding” with Russians “trying to get information on Donald Trump.” He did not specify when the alleged activity occurred.
The statement was made in the context of his announcement Sunday that he and a number of congressional colleagues are sending eight criminal referrals to the DOJ this week stemming from the FBI’s 2016 investigation into the Trump campaign for alleged “collusion” with the Kremlin.