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Less than a month after suing Twitter for allowing its users to insult him, California Republican Representative Devin Nunes, said he was suing the McClatchy Company newspaper chain for what he said. He called "the assassination of characters".
The defamation lawsuit is targeting $ 150 million and the removal of an article in The Fresno Bee, a McClatchy newspaper, about Alpha Omega Winery, a company owned in part by Mr. Nunes. The article, published last May, described the lawsuit of a server participating in a San Francisco Bay Cruise in 2015, which was attended by some of the biggest investors in the winery, including drugs. and prostitution.
The article stated that it was "unclear" whether Mr. Nunes "was aware of the lawsuit or was affiliated with the fundraiser" during which the cruise was auctioned.
The lawsuit brought by Mr. Nunes, a loyal ally of President Trump and former chairman of the Intelligence Committee of the House of Representatives, said that he was not involved in the incident on the yacht and was that he considered the article as part of a political plan aimed at "destroying his reputation" and derailing the committee's investigation regarding Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election.
"It's a case of character assassination and a public company that manufactured his powerful pen and used it as a terrible sword," says his trial. .
Mr. Nunes did not answer The Bee's questions when he published his article, and the newspaper wrote Monday that he had never asked for a correction.
"With the limited opportunity we have had to review this claim, it is totally unfounded and we support the continued reporting of The Fresno Bee," said Jeanne Segal, a spokeswoman for McClatchy.
McClatchy is one of the largest newspaper chains in the country and has dozens of publications, including The Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram and The Charlotte Observer.
The lawsuit also bears the name of defendant Liz Mair, a Republican strategist who was also named in the Twitter lawsuit. Mr. Nunes accuses Ms. Mair of offering "blatant sound clips to McClatchy", referring to critical comments she made in a separate article. She tweeted a link to the Fresno Bee article about the cruise, suggesting that she was working in a "conspiracy" with McClatchy, the lawsuit.
On TwitterMs. Mair responded by asking supporters to donate to her legal defense fund.
The lawsuit did not appear in the online court archives in Virginia earlier this Tuesday, but Nunes said Monday during a Fox News appearance that he filed it. A copy of the lawsuit was published by Fox News.
"If you're here and you've lied and defamed, we'll continue," Nunes told Sean Hannity, a Fox News host.
Many politicians worry about the media, but few of them channel their frustrations through lawsuits. This is due in part to the fact that the standard allowing a public figure to prove defamation against a media is high: it is not enough to show that an error has been made. Public figures must show that the publication worked with "reckless disregard" for the truth and with "real malice," and there are few examples of prosecutions by politicians.
Press advocates view these high standards as essential for communicating with public figures without facing ongoing lawsuits, which can be costly for the short – run media companies that are defending themselves.
This is the second one-month defamation suit for Mr. Nunes, whose $ 250 million lawsuit against Twitter, Ms. Mair and two anonymous accounts depicted critical tweets directed against him as proof of an effort from the tech giant to silence conservative voices. Twitter has repeatedly denied having a political bias or agenda.
The lawsuit against Twitter included a long list of insults lobbed by a parody account, @DevinCow, whose visibility has soared after covering the pursuit. The account now has more than 600,000 subscribers, compared to about 1,200.
Mackenzie Mays, the author of the article about Bee, who is now a journalist at Politico, has spoken little in response to the complaint filed on Twitter, but she has republished a picture of support for reporters that has circulated since Last year.
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