WASHINGTON — More details about former Congressman Devin Nunes’ assumption of Truth Social could be revealed as part of a lawsuit that he filed against a magazine company.
Lawyers for the magazine company, which Nunes sued over an article about his family’s Iowa dairy farm, contend the information will show that the 2018 story did not harm his reputation in the form of $75 million the congressman seeks.
Nunes’ lawsuit, started when he was representing California's Central Valley in the House of Representatives, is one of many that he filed against media companies and critics before he became the chief executive officer of former President Donald Trump’s media venture.
A judge in a U.S. District Court in Florida, where Trump Technology and Media Group, or TMTG, operates, ruled Monday that the company must offer up the information surrounding Nunes’ employment for the magazine company.
The order to release documents surrounding Nunes' hiring at TMTG, is one of several legal setbacks he has suffered since leaving political office.
Nunes said that he was leaving Congress in early December 2021, resigned in January 2022 and took over Truth Social immediately. The congressman, who represented Tulare and Fresno counties in Congress for nearly two decades, signaled no attempt to end one of the 10 defamation lawsuits he started in a string since 2019.
The one against Esquire Magazine, owned by Hearst, concerned a 2018 story about Nunes’ family’s dairy farm in Iowa. The story, written by the magazine’s former employee, Ryan Lizza, suggested that the family knowingly hired undocumented immigrants.
Lizza’s story is titled “Devin Nunes’ Family Farm Is Hiding a Politically Explosive Secret.” He also is a defendant in Nunes’ suit.
Nunes does not have a stake in his family’s farm. He and his family denied that they knowingly used undocumented labor. In separate cases, Nunes and his family sued both Hearst and Lizza, though they had a mutual lawyer, Steven Biss, who has represented the congressman in most of his defamation cases.
A judge for the U.S. District Court in Northern Iowa joined Nunes’ and his family’s lawsuits against Hearst and Lizza, despite the Nunes family's desire not to, in February. Attorneys for Nunes and his family were concerned that the family would be confused for public figures, who have harder times collecting damages in defamation lawsuits.
Lawyers for Hearst and Lizza, who now works for Politico, had wanted to join the lawsuits to heighten efficiency since the cases were “nearly identical.”
Before that, Nunes’ lawsuit against Hearst and Lizza had been dismissed and revived. A different judge at the Iowa court ruled that the statements in Hearst’s story did not hurt the Republican congressman, did not concern him and, even if they did, Nunes did not prove actual malice, the standard which public figures must show to gain damages in defamation suits. Actual malice means the publication posted the information knowing that a statement is false or did so with reckless disregard for the truth.
But a panel of three judges at an appeals court reopened the suit in September 2021 over a tweet that linked to the story that Lizza posted after Nunes filed suit, saying that the social media post was intended to reach a new audience. By then, the judges found, Lizza should have known that Nunes was contesting the story and should not have continued to promote it. They sent it back to the Iowa court.
As part of the lawsuit, attorneys for Hearst and Lizza also questioned who was paying the Nunes family’s legal fees. The payment agreement between attorney and client was sound, the judge said.
In addition to Hearst and Lizza, Nunes is still suing the parent company of MSNBC and The Washington Post. He is trying to sue the people behind “Devin Nunes’ cow” and “Devin Nunes' Alt-Mom,” though his lawyer told the court that he did not know who they were in order to serve them with a complaint.
Last month, he agreed to terminate a lawsuit against a former constituent of his that he accused of being married to the so-called “Twitter cow.” He also has dropped suits against McClatchy, which owns The Fresno Bee, as well as a group of former constituents who called him a “fake farmer.”
Judges have dismissed cases against Twitter, a Republican strategist, the compiler of the so-called Steele Dossier, The Post in a different lawsuit and CNN.
None of the attorneys for Nunes, TMTG nor Hearst and Lizza responded to a request for comment.
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