Government

Devin Nunes Needs More Cowbell. And a Lawyer Barred In California.

This lawsuit is a doozy.

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Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Devin Nunes is MAD. His wee feefees are triggered, his safe spaces are violated, and he actually had to work to get re-elected last November This aggression will not stand, man!

The targets of the Congressman’s ire are many. There’s Twitter, of course, for “censoring” his sacred First Amendment right to post his rodeo clown cosplay online. Allegedly. And mean avatars purporting to be his mother or a comely cow with whom he takes long, soulful walks in the moonlight. Because Devin has a degree in dairy science and, also, Internet, Are You New Here? There’s the Fresno Bee, which published an accurate story about Devin being an investor in a winery that rented its boat out for a party featuring cocaine and underaged prostitutes. And there’s Liz Mair, a Republican strategist who talks a lot of smack online about Devin and makes him feel lower than a cow pat, which is obviously a grievous crime against nature.

Or as Devin put it in his real live lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Henrico County, Virginia:

In 2018, during his last re-election for the 22nd Congressional District, Nunes endured an orchestrated defamation campaign of stunning breadth and scope, one that no human being should ever have to bear and suffer in their whole life.

Sweet Lord, the suffering! It could curdle the milk right in your udder!

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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”;

And so, so much more. Naturally, Devin demands that Twitter, Mair, @DevinCow and @DevinNunesMom remit $250,000,000 plus interest to the Congressman immediately to compensate for his pain, suffering, and that election night squeaker where he only held his seat by a five point margin.

Once the good folks on Twitter’s legal team convinced themselves they weren’t on an episode of Punk’d and finally quit giggling, they filed this Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Personal Jurisdiction and Venue in Henrico County. Because a California resident can’t get Virginia jurisdiction over a California company just by adding in a Virginia defendant and claiming they were all in on it together. (Besides which, Liz Mair lives in Arlington County, not Henrico but … YOU TRIED.)

Far be it from us to risk mad cow disease trying to read Devin Nunes’s mind, but if we had to guess, the Congressman likes his chances better in Virginia where there’s a weak SLAPP law than in California, where he might wind up having to fork over for Twitter’s legal fees. Unfortunately for old Devin, he forgot to check his Twitter terms of service, which specify that all suits be brought in San Francisco under California law. Womp womp.

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And it just so happens that Ms. Mair was only too delighted to agree to submit to personal jurisdiction in California, where she might be entitled to attorneys fees if she prevailed. That just leaves Devin’s Mom and his trusty Cow, who reside nowhere, being entirely fictional avatars. But even avatars have to sign the TOS before they enter Twitterland, so looks like everyone’s piling into a conestoga wagon and heading west to the Golden State. Yeehaw!

No doubt Devin will be refiling that lawsuit in San Francisco and collecting his $250,000,000 real soon. Maybe once discovery goes underway, he and his ladycow can get in to see the shadowbanning room at Twitter. Stay close, Bessy, we hear that’s where they practice the dark arts!

Nunes v. Twitter, Complaint [SCRIBD]

Nunes v. Twitter, Memorandum in Support of Motion to Dismiss [SCRIBD]

Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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