California Rep. Devin Nunes has had his libel case against The Washington Post dismissed by an Obama-appointed judge, who cited procedural deficiencies and ruling that the nine-term Republican didn’t state a factual claim of defamation.
At issue was a Washington Post story written by Shane Harris from February headlined ''Senior intelligence official told lawmakers that Russia wants to see Trump reelected.''
The article stated as fact that Nunes informed President Donald Trump about a briefing by a U.S. intelligence official to the House intelligence committee that Russia had ''developed a preference'' for Trump in the upcoming presidential election. It added that Trump grew angry because of the erroneous belief that then-Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire or his staff gave the briefing to intelligence committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., exclusively.
The article did not specify the reason for Trump’s erroneous belief but quoted ''people familiar with the matter'' that the president became angry for having learned about the briefing from a ''congressman,'' according to the opinion written by U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta. Nunes claimed he was defamed by the story’s clear implication that he ''lied to and deceived the President of the United States.''
Mehta, 48, dismissed the case saying Harris was never formally served with a copy of the lawsuit and that a reasonable person would not discern that Nunes was the one who gave Trump the impression that Schiff was the only one given the briefing — even though he is the one who the Post said informed Trump of it.
''Even if one could plausibly read the article as implying that (Nunes’) communications with President Trump somehow contributed to the President’s erroneous belief, nothing in the article suggests that (Nunes) affirmatively 'lied to and deceived' the president,'' Mehta wrote.
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