Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) has filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court for the County of Henrico in Virginia against Twitter, Liz Mair, Mair Strategies, LLC, and Twitter accounts @DevinNunesMom and @DevinCow (Devin Nunes’ Cow).
The lawsuit says that Nunes “seeks compensatory damages and punitive damages in an amount not less than $250,000,000” for alleged “negligence, defamation per se, insulting words, and civil conspiracy.”
Nunes made many accusations against the defendants, including facilitation of conservative shadow-banning:
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.
Next, Nunes took aim at the Twitter account impersonating his mom.
“Defendant, Devin Nunes’ Mom, is a person who, with Twitter’s consent, hijacked Nunes’ name, falsely impersonated Nunes’ mother, and created and maintained an account on Twitter (@DevinNunesMom) for the sole purpose of attacking, defaming, disparaging and demeaning Nunes,” the suit said. “In her endless barrage of tweets, Devin Nunes’ Mom maliciously attacked every aspect of Nunes’ character, honesty, integrity, ethics and fitness to perform his duties as a United States Congressman.”
Here were a couple of examples of tweets Nunes is taking issue with:
Nunes went on to catalogue the falsehoods and defamations tweeted by the Devin Nunes’ Mom account:
Devin Nunes’ Mom stated that Nunes had turned out worse than Jacob Wohl; falsely accused Nunes of being a racist, having “white supremist friends” and distributing “disturbing inflammatory racial propaganda”; falsely accused Nunes of putting up a “Fake News MAGA” sign outside a Texas Holocaust museum; falsely stated that Nunes would probably join the “Proud Boys”, “if it weren’t for that unfortunate ‘no masturbating’ rule”; disparagingly called him a “presidential fluffer and swamp rat”; falsely stated that Nunes had brought “shame” to his family; repeatedly accused Nunes of the crime of treason, compared him to Benedict Arnold, and called him a “traitor”, “treasonous shitbag”, a “treasonous Putin shill”, working for the “Kremlin”; falsely stated that Nunes was “100% bought and sold. He has no interest remaining for his constituents”; falsely accused Nunes of being part of the President’s “taint” team; falsely stated that Nunes was unfit to run the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; falsely accused Nunes of “secretly hat[ing] the people he’s supposed to serve”; falsely accused Nunes of being a “lying piece of shit”; falsely stated that Nunes would lose custody of his children and was going to “the pen”; falsely accused Nunes of receiving pay for undermining “American Democracy”; falsely stated that Nunes was “the most despicably craven GOP public official” and that “Devin might be a unscrupulous, craven, back-stabbing, charlatan and traitor, but he’s no Ted Cruz”; falsely stated that Nunes was “voted ‘Most Likely to Commit Treason’ in high school”; falsely stated that “The people of California’s Central Valley are upright folk who work hard, look you square in the eye and give you a firm handshake. And then there is @DevinNunes”; falsely stated that Nunes is “not ALL about deceiving people. He’s also about betraying his country and colluding with Russians”; stated “I don’t know about Baby Hitler, but would sure-as-shit abort baby Devin”; falsely stated that “Alpha Omega wines taste like treason”; falsely stated that “@DevinNunes wanted me to tell everyone that he’ll be releasing a pic soon to get ahead of that AMI thing, and that it only looks that way because of all the blow”; falsely suggested that Nunes might be willing to give the President a “blowjob”; falsely stated “@Devin Nunes look @SpeakerRyan is removing @Rep_Hunter from his committee seat because he’s corrupt and incompetent. I wonder why he let you keep yours?”; falsely accused Nunes of “covering up Trump’s conspiracy against the United States”; falsely accused Nunes of lying to Congress; falsely accused Nunes of suborning “perjury”; falsely stated that “@Devin Nunes is DEFINITELY a feckless c***” [and it keeps going…]
Nunes accused Twitter of doing nothing to “investigate or review the defamation that appeared in plain view on its platform.”
“Twitter consciously allowed the defamation of Nunes to continue despite reports and purported reviews by Twitter’s content moderators,” the suit said.
Nunes is demanding a trial by jury, compensatory damages no less than $250,000,000, and punitive damages “in the amount of $350,000.00 or the maximum amount allowed by law.”
Nunes Complaint – 3.18.19 by on Scribd
[Image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images]
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