Devin Nunes sues CNN for $435M over ‘false and defamatory’ Ukraine story
MSN, Dec 3, 2019, Fox News

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., sued CNN for defamation on Tuesday, accusing the cable network of publishing a “demonstrably false hit piece” about him amid his high-profile opposition to the Trump impeachment inquiry.

The 47-page lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, accuses the liberal network of publishing “numerous egregiously false and defamatory” statements about Nunes on Nov. 22, 2019 when journalist Vicky Ward reported claims that Nunes met with Ukranian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, in Vienna in 2018 to dig "up dirt" on Hunter and Joe Biden.

Nunes, who has been leading GOP opposition to the House Democratic impeachment inquiry in the House Intelligence Committee, says he “did not go to Vienna or anywhere else in Austria in 2018” and “has never met” Shokin.

“CNN is the mother of fake news. It is the least trusted name. CNN is eroding the fabric of America, proselytizing, sowing distrust and disharmony. It must be held accountable,” the lawsuit, obtained by Fox News, states.

Nunes is seeking at least $435,350,000 in compensatory and punitive damages.

CNN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

More: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/d...IFKk?ocid=ientp

Devin Nunes Sues CNN: Reveals He Was Not in Vienna in Late 2018, Did Not Meet Victor Shokin
Breitbart, Dec 3, 2019

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) ranking member Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against CNN for a fake news story the outlet printed about him before Thanksgiving, revealing in the lawsuit that he was never as CNN alleged in Vienna in late 2018 and did not meet with the ousted Ukrainian prosecutor CNN alleged he met with there.

Nunes’s lawsuit includes revelations of key facts that undermine the case CNN made against him, severely harming the news outlet’s credibility. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Virginia, shows Nunes is seeking more than $435 million in damages from CNN over the fake news it printed against him. But more importantly, it demonstrates that Nunes was 100 percent correct when he told Breitbart News before Thanksgiving that CNN’s story was untrue–and that CNN was completely inaccurate in its reporting and had relied on a compromised source for its piece.

It remains to be seen how successful this lawsuit will be–it is very difficult for public figures to successfully sue media outlets because of a variety of protections the media are afforded–but the facts as laid out by Nunes and his attorney in this suit are particularly damning for CNN as Nunes and his team successfully demonstrate that the network engaged in printing and then disseminating demonstrably false information about him.

Back before Thanksgiving, CNN reported what would have been a big story if it were true.

“Exclusive: Giuliani associate willing to tell Congress Nunes met with ex-Ukrainian official to get dirt on Biden” was the headline on reporter Vicky Ward’s piece.

The piece opened with these explosive allegations:

Quote

---

A lawyer for an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani told CNN that his client is willing to tell Congress about meetings the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee had in Vienna last year with a former Ukrainian prosecutor to discuss digging up dirt on Joe Biden.

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,” said Bondy.

---

[...]

On the second page of Nunes’s 47-page lawsuit against CNN, he addresses a number of the factual inaccuracies in CNN’s reporting. First, the claim that Nunes was in Vienna last year–which CNN dutifully reported on behalf of its compromised source–is untrue. Nunes was not in Vienna.

“Devin Nunes did not go to Vienna or anywhere else in Austria in 2018,” Nunes’s lawsuit states on page two. “Between November 30, 2018 and December 3, 2018, Devin Nunes visited Benghazi, Libya on official business of the House Intelligence Committee to discuss security issues with General Khalifa Haftar. Devin Nunes also traveled to Malta, where he met with U.S. and Maltese officials, including Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, and participated in repatriation ceremony for the remains of an American World War II Soldier missing in action.”

The CNN piece’s claim that Nunes met with ousted Ukrainian prosecutor Victor Shokin is also untrue. Shokin is a significant figure in that he was the prosecutor general in Ukraine that then Vice President Joe Biden pushed Ukraine to fire in exchange for U.S. taxpayer aid money, an actual quid pro quo that Biden has readily admitted on television, which has the appearance of corruption swirling around it given that Shokin’s office was investigating Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings. Burisma, at the time, was paying Biden’s son Hunter Biden more than $50,000 a month to sit on the company’s board. So, nonetheless, it would have been newsworthy had Nunes met with Shokin.

But, according to his lawsuit against CNN, this claim is also untrue: Nunes never met with Shokin.


More: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/...-victor-shokin/

Personally, I hope Devin Nunes puts CNN out of business.

Not going to happen but I wish it would.