On Monday, Republican Rep. Devin Nunes (CA), the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against Twitter, two anonymous accounts on the platform, and political consultant and Daily Beast op-ed contributor Liz Mair.
In the complaint, filed in Virginia Monday, Nunes seeks $250 million in compensatory damages and another $350 million in punitive damages against Twitter, Mair, and the anonymous accounts “Devin Nunes’ Mom” and “Devin Nunes’ Cow,” who he says have waged a lengthy smear campaign against him designed to undermine the work in the House Intelligence Committee investigating “corruption by the Clinton campaign and alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 Presidential Election.” In the introduction to the lawsuit, Nunes’ legal team summarizes the congressman’s case against Twitter.
“Twitter is an information content provider,” the complaint reads. “Twitter creates and develops content, in whole or in part, through a combination of means: (a) by explicit censorship of viewpoints with which it disagrees, (b) by shadow-banning conservatives, such as Plaintiff, (c) by knowingly hosting and monetizing content that is clearly abusive, hateful and defamatory – providing both a voice and financial incentive to the defamers –thereby facilitating defamation on its platform, (d) by completely ignoring lawful complaints about offensive content and by allowing that content to remain accessible to the public, and (e) by intentionally abandoning and refusing to enforce its so-called Terms of Service and Twitter Rules – essentially refusing to self-regulate – thereby selectively amplifying the message of defamers such as Mair, Devin Nunes’ Mom and Devin Nunes’ cow, and materially contributing to the libelousness of the hundreds of posts at issue in this action.”
The platform is partly responsible, Nunes mantains, because “Twitter created and developed the content at issue in this case by transforming false accusations of criminal conduct, imputed wrongdoing, dishonesty and lack of integrity into a publicly available commodity used by unscrupulous political operatives and their donor/clients as a weapon.”
“Twitter knew the defamation was (and is) happening,” the complaint continues. “Twitter let it happen because Twitter had (and has) a political agenda and motive: Twitter allowed (and allows) its platform to serve as a portal of defamation in order to undermine public confidence in Plaintiff and to benefit his opponents and opponents of the Republican Party. In this case, Twitter contributed materially to the illegal conduct of defamers Mair, Devin Nunes’ Mom and Devin Nunes’ cow.”
The specific intention of the smear campaign was to undermine Nunes’ work in investigating the Clinton campaign and alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, Nunes’ legal team asserts.
“Twitter, by its actions, intended to generate and proliferate the false and defamatory statements about Plaintiff in order to influence the outcome of the 2018 Congressional election and to intimidate Plaintiff and interfere with his important investigation of corruption by the Clinton campaign and alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 Presidential Election,” the complaint states. “Twitter knowingly acted as a vessel of opposition research.”
The complaint seeks “not only damages, but also an injunction compelling Twitter to turn over the identities behind numerous accounts he said harassed and defamed him,” Fox News notes.
Among the examples of defamation by the accounts cited in the lawsuit are Mair’s tweets that “implied that Nunes colluded with prostitutes and cocaine addicts, that Nunes does cocaine, and that Nunes was involved in a ‘Russian money laundering front,” Fox notes.
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