Former House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) is still one of the president’s boys. Donald Trump gives a command and his supplicants are on it. Now, the California representative has infuriated judges — bad idea.
Nunes has been filing lawsuit after lawsuit against activists, media companies, and the firm behind the Steel Dossier, seven in all. He claimed that they “cospired” (sic) against him during his reelection campaign and damaged his reputation.
Former Virginia State Bar President. Kevin Martingayle has been involved with both ethics and disciplinary committees for 10-plus years. He said, according to The Fresno Bee:
‘If I got one warning like that from a judge, I would be extremely careful going forward. I can’t recall seeing it in an order after practicing law for 30 years, which has included some pretty contentious defamation cases.’
If an attorney or an individual in court acts irresponsibly and abuses the system, a judge could apply sanctions. That would usually take the form of a fine.
This has not been Nunes’ attorney Steven Biss’ first rodeo. He was sanctioned in the past for “a deliberately wrongful act that reflects adversely on his fitness to practice law.” In the end, he received a one-year suspension from practicing law in 2008.
Trump’s first attorney, Roy Cohen, was disbarred.
Biss has represented Nunes in six lawsuits. Along the way, he accumulated two rare judicial warnings. He risked his legal license.
Last year, Nunes and Biss sued Fusion GPS, National Public Radio (NPE), twitter, and a whistleblower advocate. They urged these entities and individuals to be sanctioned. Their crime was allegedly defamation of character.
The attorneys sued Fusion GPS for pulling together the “Steele dossier,” because it had unverified information linking Trump to Russia. A federal judge dismissed the case in February. The judge suggested the two come up with “a more substantive complaint to avoid sanctions.”
Apparently, they did not listen to the judge carefully. In early April, Nunes brought back the case. Fusion GPS called the suit “absurd” and reversed its role by claiming that Nunes “ignored that warning.”
Fusion GPS’s motion claimed:
‘[The suit was] so packed with irrelevant, frivolous and malicious allegations that it is impossible to decipher what conduct (Nunes) alleges is unlawful.’
Bliss’ clients include Nunes, a Russian graduate student who might have been a Russian spy, and the multimillionaire who has allegedly created conspiracy theories.
As he dismissed the case for the Russian graduate student in February, Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia warned Biss about filing “further inappropriate pleadings.”
Nunes was also suing McClatchym whose umbrella included The Fresno Bee for defamation of character. McClatchy scoffed the lawsuit, calling it a “baseless attack on local journalism.”
Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.
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