From Taibbi v. Kamlager-Dove, decided Monday by Judge Evelyn Padin (D.N.J.):
Representative Kamlager-Dove … is … the Ranking Member of the South and Central Asia Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee …. The Subcommittee held a hearing on April 1, 2025, titled "Censorship Industrial Complex: The Need for First Amendment Safeguards at the State Department" …. Taibbi was invited to testify at the Hearing. At the start of the Hearing, Representative Kamlager-Dove delivered her prepared remarks, which included the following statements:
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for being here for our first South and Central Asia Subcommittee hearing. I look forward to working with the Chair in a bipartisan way on the critical issues we are charged with overseeing.
Unfortunately, we're not having a hearing about any of those. Instead, this Subcommittee is wasting taxpayer time and resources on the fifth such hearing Republicans have held across multiple committees on the so-called "censorship-industrial complex."
The majority is relitigating a made-up conspiracy theory about a part of the State Department that no longer exists to distract from the dumpster fire foreign policy this Administration is pursuing—and elevating a serial sexual harasser as their star witness in the process.
The same day of the Hearing, Representative Kamlager-Dove reposted a video of the Statements on two social media platforms: X (formerly Twitter) and BlueSky. Both posts contained the same statement: "After this, Republicans gave Matt Taibbi time to defend himself. It's telling that he didn't." … Representative Kamlager-Dove also posted the Statements on her official House.gov website….
Taibbi alleges that the "serial sexual harasser" comment by Representative Kamlager-Dove was directed at him and that it is "demonstrably false" and "made with actual malice." Taibbi claims that the republications of the Statements—the X, BlueSky, and Website Posts—were defamatory ….
Members of Congress, like other employees, are covered by the Westfall Act, under which, if "the defendant qualifies as an 'employee of the government,' and the Attorney General certifies that the employee 'was acting within the scope of his office or employment,'" the U.S. government is substituted as defendant for the employee. And though the AG's certification is reviewable, here the court agreed that "Representative Kamlager-Dove's statements were within the scope of her employment." Some excerpts:
