Former California GOP Rep. Devin Nunes cannot revive his defamation lawsuit against CNN, a federal court ruled Thursday, citing reports of him being involved in efforts to uncover information about President Joe Biden.
Nunes, who left the House in January, failed to seek a correction fast enough or show he deserved “special damages” for economic loss from CNN, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said. The trial judge “did not err” in finding that Nunes did not comply with California law governing retractions, and his $435 million lawsuit should be dismissed with prejudice, U.S. Circuit Judge William Nardini said.
Sources familiar with the matter pointed the Washington Examiner to the dissenting judge’s view and said Nunes’s team was considering its next steps but would likely move for an en banc hearing in front of the full 2nd Circuit.
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The dissenting judge, Steven Menashi, wrote that California law should not be relied upon because Nunes didn’t suffer the greatest reputational injury there.
The former congressman sued CNN in December 2020 over an article from November 2019 that claimed a lawyer for Lev Parnas, a then-indicted associate of former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, was willing to testify before Congress that Nunes met in 2018 with a former Ukrainian prosecutor to discuss “digging up dirt” on Biden, who was running for president at the time. The lawsuit was first dismissed in February 2021, with U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain stating Nunes failed to demand a retraction from the outlet, according to Deadline.
Nunes denied the accusations and called the outlet “the mother of fake news.“
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Another lawsuit from Nunes hit a speed bump April 1 when a different federal appeals court upheld the dismissal of the $250 million lawsuit against the Washington Post. The outlet defamed Nunes by implying he lied to former President Donald Trump about who attended a February 2020 intelligence briefing concerning Russia, the suit unsuccessfully argued.
Nunes left Congress on Jan. 1 to become chief executive of Trump’s social media venture, the Trump Media & Technology Group. A special election to fill his vacant seat will be decided in a June runoff.
