'Dumpster fire': Devin Nunes ruthlessly mocked over Truth Social's 'garbage' defamation suit

Former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), now heading up former President Donald Trump's Truth Social platform, is creating a legal "dumpster fire" for his company with new lawsuits directed at journalists, wrote legal analyst Liz Dye for Above The Law.

"Regular readers of this column will recall that Devin Nunes is a prolific filer of garbage defamation suits, against various news outlets, social media companies, and random Twitter cows," wrote Dye. "He’s usually accompanied on these outings by his clownshoes lawyer Stephen Biss, and indeed, Biss is along for these two suits, chaperoned by local counsel Jason Kobal, head of a two-lawyer shop whose website is tampaworkcomplaw.com."

All of these lawsuits have ended in failure. One particular blow came last month, when a Trump-appointed judge tossed out his lawsuit against Esquire for an article on how his family uses undocumented labor at their dairy farm — ruling the evidence was clear that the story's allegation was true.

Now, Dye wrote, under Nunes' leadership, Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), which runs Truth Social, is filing similarly flimsy lawsuits against The Guardian and The Washington Post.

"TMTG is in the midst of trying to take itself public via a SPAC known as Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC). But the deal appears to be seriously in jeopardy, with the SEC, FINRA, and the Justice Department investigating DWAC. There are also reports that DWAC’s recently ousted CEO Patrick Orlando, who met with Trump before DWAC’s founding, made it clear from the jump that taking TMTG public was the entire reason for founding the SPAC, a gross violation of SEC rules," reported Dye. "In March, The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reported that TMTG is under investigation for possible money laundering in relation to an $8 million loan from a company whose main business appears to be processing payments for webcam pornography in the former Soviet Union."

TMTG's lawsuit against The Guardian claims that "Defendants published and republished egregious statements online and via social media (Twitter) that falsely accused or implied that Nunes engaged in or aided and abetted money laundering." In reality, Dye noted, the article only mentioned Nunes twice, one of which was to include his denial of the allegations — and the lawsuit was filed in state court in Florida despite none of the defendants being in Florida.

This was soon followed up by another TMTG lawsuit against the Post, for reporting that the DOJ is investigating a $240,000 finder's fee in the acquisition deal that was allegedly never revealed to shareholders in violation of the law — and, wrote Dye, the suit was released on the same day that "DWAC filed notice that it was in danger of being delisted from NASDAQ due to failure to file a timely quarterly report, and that it had 'identified an error related to the accounting for certain expenses in the previously issued financial statements as of and for the year ended December 31, 2022' and thus its financial statements from last year 'should no longer be relied upon.'"

"The Guardian case is set for conference before Judge Stephen Walker in September, and the Post case has been assigned to Walker, but no hearings have yet been scheduled," concluded Dye. "So it may be a few months before we find out if Nunes can do for TMTG what he managed to do for his own family. We’re all rootin’ for ya, little cowpoke!"