WASHINGTON — A Virginia judge has dismissed the second of two lawsuits California Rep. Devin Nunes filed against a Republican political strategist who he claimed spread defamatory information about him leading up to his 2018 reelection campaign.
Judge John Marshall’s ruling from earlier this month in Virginia’s Henrico County Circuit Court dismisses Liz Mair from a case Nunes filed against her, Twitter and anonymous writers who heckled him on Twitter under the fictional personas of a cow and his mother.
Marshall previously dismissed Twitter from the lawsuit, meaning Nunes cannot sue the company in that court over the claims he raised in the case. Nunes continues to attempt to sue the Twitter personalities known as “Devin Nunes’ cow,” @DevinCow, and “Devin Nunes’ Alt-Mom,” @NunesAlt, although he has not been able to serve them with a complaint.
The ruling to dismiss Mair, obtained by The Fresno Bee, reads that Nunes’ complaint failed to describe the exact words Mair used to defame him, that the statements Nunes alleged Mair made were not defamatory and that “the facts alleged fail to support a reasonable inference that Mair made any of the alleged statements with the requisite intent of actual malice.”
It also said that Nunes did not prove Mair had entered a conspiratorial agreement to slander him.
Previously, Judge Claude V. Worrell Jr. in Albemarle County Circuit Court dismissed Mair from a lawsuit Nunes filed against her and McClatchy, the parent company of The Fresno Bee, over a news story published in 2018. Nunes dropped McClatchy from the suit during the company’s bankruptcy last year.
Nunes is appealing the Albemarle County judge’s decision to dismiss Mair, a clerk told The Bee. He sought $150 million from her in that case.
Nunes can appeal the ruling for Mair in Henrico County, too, depending on whether the congressman’s legal team serves the two Twitter accounts with a complaint or drops the case against them.
“He may yet appeal,” Mair said of the decision to dismiss her from the Twitter lawsuit in Henrico County, for which the congressman sought $250 million from her, “though as I understand it, that process could occur years or even decades from now given the inability of Rep. Nunes to ‘unmask’ the cow and the mom in that case, and the possibility that the case never reaches a resolution whether through court action, settlement or dismissal of the cow and the mom from the suit.”
Neither Nunes’ office nor his lawyer responded to requests for comment.
Nunes, R-Calif., has filed 10 lawsuits since 2019 against news organizations, people and entities whom he claims have defamed him. Almost all of the defendants in these suits have been dismissed or dropped. Nunes has appealed many of these decisions.
Judges have dismissed Nunes’ lawsuits against Twitter, Hearst Magazines, CNN, The Washington Post and the investigative research firm that produced the so-called Steele Dossier of unproven intelligence tips related to former President Donald Trump. A second lawsuit against The Washington Post is active in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Most recently, Nunes filed a lawsuit against NBCUniversal, the parent company of MSNBC, over comments made by one of its anchors in her namesake show. The suit claims the anchor, Rachel Maddow, defamed Nunes in a March 18 episode when she discussed a package he received from a Ukrainian lawmaker who was sanctioned by the United States for attempting to influence the 2020 presidential election. It was filed in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas earlier this month.
Mair and her company, Mair Strategies, which was also a defendant, were dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning that the case against them cannot be refiled or reheard in those courts.
Nunes filed the suit against McClatchy and Mair over a 2018 news story that described an employee’s lawsuit against Alpha Omega Winery, a business in which Nunes holds a limited partnership. The employee in the story claimed she was asked to work at a charity event on a yacht where the guests appeared to use drugs and hire prostitutes, which made the employee uncomfortable.
Nunes claimed Mair conspired to spread defamatory information about him. The judge ruled that Nunes’ complaint failed to show he could prove that Mair conspired against him or defamed him, according to the final order in the case obtained by The Bee.
Mair said she hopes that other judges drop Nunes’ various suits.
“It is ridiculous that we have had a sitting United States congressman suing a fake farmyard animal, let alone me, for being mean to him on Twitter, which the First Amendment clearly protects,” Mair said. “It is also extremely disturbing that Rep. Nunes has, on my read, appeared to use litigation as a cudgel to try to stifle free speech in such a wanton manner.”
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