Devin Nunes says he'll file yet another lawsuit, this time against CNN
He's already filed lawsuits against journalists, stone fruit farmers, and fake cows on Twitter, so what's another court case?
On Sunday, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said he will soon sue CNN over a report published Friday that ties him to former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin. Shokin was ousted from his position in 2016, during an anti-corruption drive, and one of the people who applied pressure to remove him was former Vice President Joe Biden.
A lawyer for Lev Parnas, one of Rudy Giuliani's business associates, told CNN that Shokin revealed to his client that he met with Nunes in Vienna last year. Shokin allegedly said Nunes was looking for information on Biden. Parnas, who has been charged with campaign finance violations, is willing to testify before Congress, the lawyer said. Records show that Nunes was in Europe on a congressional trip from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3, 2018.
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Nunes is one of President Trump's most ardent defenders, and as the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, he has been a major part of the impeachment proceedings. During an interview with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, Nunes was asked if he ever met with Shokin in Vienna.
"I really want to answer all these questions," Nunes responded, before adding that he was unable to because "there is criminal activity here. We're working with different law enforcement agencies. I think you can understand that I can't compete by trying to debate this out with the public media when 90 percent of the media are totally corrupt." Nunes said he will take both CNN and The Daily Beast, which also reported on the alleged meeting with Shokin, to federal court after Thanksgiving. "So we hope that CNN and Daily Beast will cooperate with the court," he added. "They should comply with the subpoenas once we file this and go through different depositions. It should be fun."
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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