Republican Congressman Devin Nunes hit CNN with a massive lawsuit Tuesday that seeks nearly half a billion dollars over a recent report by the news outlet that he calls “demonstrably false.”
The story Nunes cites claimed that an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s lawyer, was willing to testify that Nunes met with a Ukrainian prosecutor to try to find incriminating information about former Vice President and 2020 Democrat Joe Biden.
Nunes Calls Out CNN as ‘Fake News’
Fox News reported that the lawsuit seeks “at least $435,350,000 in compensatory and punitive damages.”
“CNN is the mother of fake news,” the lawsuit states. “It is the least trusted name. CNN is eroding the fabric of America, proselytizing, sowing distrust and disharmony. It must be held accountable.”
BREAKING: Devin Nunes Hits CNN With Massive Lawsuit Over ‘Demonstrably False’ Ukraine Report https://t.co/do24cmpQq2
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) December 3, 2019
“The ulterior purpose of the CNN Article is to advance the impeachment inquiry, to seed doubt in the minds of Americans, and to influence the outcome of the 2020 election,” the document read.
The suit is in response to a CNN report in November that read, “The attorney, Joseph A. Bondy, represents Lev Parnas, the recently indicted Soviet-born American who worked with Giuliani to push claims of Democratic corruption in Ukraine. Bondy said that Parnas was told directly by the former Ukrainian official that he met last year in Vienna with Rep. Devin Nunes.”
“Mr. Parnas learned from former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin that Nunes had met with Shokin in Vienna last December,” Bondy told CNN. “Nunes had told Shokin of the urgent need to launch investigations into Burisma, Joe and Hunter Biden, and any purported Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election.”
Nunes CNN lawsuit reveals he wasn't even in Austria in 2018 – he was in Libya! https://t.co/iLOCJCxYGs
— Jack Posobiec ?? (@JackPosobiec) December 3, 2019
‘They will find themselves in court soon after Thanksgiving’
According to CNN, Bondy claimed that Parnas and Nunes began exchanging information with one another other around the time of the Vienna trip and that Parnas worked to set Nunes up with Ukrainian government officials who could try to find something about Biden.
Nunes told Breitbart News last month, “These demonstrably false and scandalous stories published by the Daily Beast and CNN are the perfect example of defamation and reckless disregard for the truth. Some political operative offered these fake stories to at least five different media outlets before finding someone irresponsible enough to publish them.”
“I look forward to prosecuting these cases, including the media outlets, as well as the sources of their fake stories, to the fullest extent of the law,” Nunes said at the time. “I intend to hold the Daily Beast and CNN accountable for their actions. They will find themselves in court soon after Thanksgiving.”
Devin Nunes denies meeting ex-Ukrainian prosecutor Shokin in lawsuit against "Mother of fake news" CNN. https://t.co/YddJu9Dqt0
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) December 3, 2019
Will Nunes Ultimately Reveal CNN’s Alleged Duplicity in Court?
When CNN claimed last month to question Nunes about his Vienna trip, he responded by simply saying, “I don’t talk to you in this lifetime or the next lifetime. At any time. On any question.”
When CNN followed up, they reported that Nunes said, “To be perfectly clear, I don’t acknowledge any questions from you in this lifetime or the next lifetime. I don’t acknowledge any question from you ever.”
Who is telling the truth? And could Devin Nunes lawsuit find CNN to be officially “fake news” in a court of law?