Judge Throws Out Libel Lawsuit From Devin Nunes In Another Humiliation

0
1002

Devin Nunes, the former Republican Congressman from California who left a high-profile spot in the House to involve himself with Donald Trump’s corporate ventures in social media, has lost another lawsuit, although an appeal is possible.

This time, U.S. District Court Judge C.J. Williams has dismissed litigation from plaintiffs including Nunes and family members of his that alleged libel over a story from years past claiming undocumented immigrants were employed at a dairy farm with the ex-Congressman’s family behind it.

The reason — well, a reason — Williams dismissed the lawsuits is that the allegations raised in the original reporting were fundamentally true, he found. It obviously doesn’t really seem there would be a rhetorical path forward for a case like this if disputed claims were accurate. As highlighted in POLITICO, the federal Social Security Administration conducted a check on names and other personally identifying details for hundreds of employees — and most of the sets of data didn’t match records on file, seemingly suggesting obfuscation. “This Court ordered the SSA to verify the SSNs of all disclosed NuStar Farms employees,” the judge wrote. “Of those employees who NuStar plaintiffs employed on or before September 30, 2018, 243 of 319 employees’ names, dates of birth, and SSNs did not match SSA records.”

“Williams also said there was testimony and evidence that the farm was warned about such mismatches,” POLITICO summarized. Nunes has been involved in a series of similar lawsuits, including a case complaining about the actions of Twitter accounts parodying the now former Congressman’s life under names including “Devin Nunes’ Mom” and “Devin Nunes’ Cow.” He’d originally included even Twitter itself in that sweeping case, although they’ve since been removed.

At the Trump company behind Truth Social, which is the ex-president’s knock-off social media site where he began posting online after his exit from office and restrictions imposed on mainstream platforms, Nunes hasn’t seen much success, either. Although a merger was planned between the Trump firm, where he is CEO, and a so-called blank check company that could’ve helped provide Donald’s operation with troves of additional financial support and the opportunity for more with a public stock listing, that arrangement has faltered with staggering delays and remains unfulfilled. Multiple federal investigations have been started, including what The Guardian said was even a probe into some of the stopgap financial support procured at the Trump company in the form of millions of dollars in loans including from a bank outside the U.S.