{"id":612858,"date":"2021-08-05T13:22:25","date_gmt":"2021-08-05T17:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=612858"},"modified":"2021-08-05T13:22:27","modified_gmt":"2021-08-05T17:22:27","slug":"she-made-them-up-out-of-whole-cloth-republican-congressman-sues-rachel-maddow-over-russian-allegations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/she-made-them-up-out-of-whole-cloth-republican-congressman-sues-rachel-maddow-over-russian-allegations\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018She Made Them Up Out Of Whole Cloth\u2019: Republican Congressman Sues Rachel Maddow Over Russian Allegations"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fshe-made-them-up-out-of-whole-cloth-republican-congressman-sues-rachel-maddow-over-russian-allegations%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=612858&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/mr-2.jpg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>One of the Republican congressmen who most visibly opposed Democrats\u2019 mishandling of classified information has sued MSNBC\u2019s parent company on the grounds that Rachel Maddow defamed him.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) filed a lawsuit against NBCUniversal on Tuesday over claims that Maddow made, suggesting that Nunes did not turn over a package he received from a pro-Russian Ukrainian lawmaker in late 2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow do Republicans keep Devin Nunes on as the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee given his unexplained interactions with Andriy Derkach?\u201d the show\u2019s official account <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MaddowBlog\/status\/1372745804981604354\">tweeted<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"7.3410138248848\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">How do Republicans keep Devin Nunes on as the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee given his unexplained interactions with Andriy Derkach? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/d9wKsrJVAe\">pic.twitter.com\/d9wKsrJVAe<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MaddowBlog\/status\/1372745804981604354?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 19, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cCongressman Nunes has refused to answer questions about what he received from Andriy Derkach. He has refused to show the contents of the package to other members of the intelligence community,\u201d Maddow told MSNBC viewers. \u201cHe has refused to hand it over to the FBI, which is what you should do if you get something from somebody who is sanctioned by the U.S. as a Russian agent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But in a 17-page legal complaint, Nunes states that Maddow knew that he turned the package over to the FBI and alerted then-Attorney General William Barr at the time, but she chose to run the segment without asking him for a comment.<\/p>\n<p>These \u201cstatements were a product of Maddow\u2019s imagination,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2021\/aug\/4\/devin-nunes-sues-for-defamation-over-rachel-maddow\/\">said<\/a> his lawyers, Madhu S. Sekharan and Steven S. Biss. \u201cShe made them up out of whole cloth in order to impute intentional wrongdoing to\u201d Nunes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlthough Maddow made it appear as if she had direct knowledge of facts, she did not have one shred of evidence to support the statements,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe statements falsely accuse [Nunes] of criminal conduct (obstruction of justice and treason), serious breaches of the Code of Conduct and violations of protocols concerning the handling of information that comes to the House Intelligence Committee from foreign sources such as Derkach, concealment and deception, lack of integrity and ethical improprieties,\u201d they continued.<\/p>\n<p>Nunes\u2019 attorneys stated that Maddow aired the spurious allegations, because \u201cMSNBC and Maddow harbor an institutional hostility, hatred, extreme bias, spite and ill-will towards plaintiff due to plaintiff\u2019s emergence as the most prominent skeptic in Congress of Maddow\u2019s marquee news narrative from 2017 to 2019: that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians to hack the 2016 presidential elections.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nunes could face an uphill battle against Maddow because at least one judge has already ruled that Maddow\u2019s viewers are aware that statements Maddow makes on her show may not be \u201cfact.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After One America News Network sued Maddow for falsely claiming that OANN received money from the Russian government, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Bashant \u2014 an Obama appointee \u2014 ruled last May that Rachel Maddow\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/judge-rules-rachel-maddows-statements-cannot-reasonably-be-interpreted-as-allegations-of-fact\">statements cannot reasonably be interpreted as allegations of fact<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Nunes segment aired on the March 18, 2021, episode of MSNBC\u2019s top-rated program, the \u201cRachel Maddow Show.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nunes, who serves as the ranking Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, earned the ire of congressional Democrats in February 2018, when he released a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/6-serious-outstanding-questions-house-intelligence-ben-shapiro\">four-page memo<\/a> summarizing abuses the Obama administration\u2019s FBI and Justice Department engaged in to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.<\/p>\n<p>Derkach has also been an irritant to Democrats. Last May, Derkach released what he claimed was a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/ukrainian-lawmaker-releases-recorded-phone-calls-of-biden-poroshenko-that-contain-eyebrow-raising-remarks\">private recording<\/a> of then-Vice President Joe Biden speaking with then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that appeared to confirm the allegation that Biden demanded a <em>quid pro quo <\/em>from the Ukrainian leader. In it, Joe Biden allegedly boasted to the Council on Foreign Relations that he threatened to withhold a $1 billion loan guarantee unless Poroshenko fired prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was investigating the Ukrainian oil company Burisma, which employed Hunter Biden.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDespite the fact that we didn\u2019t have any corruption charges, we don\u2019t have any information about him doing something wrong \u2026 I specifically asked him to resign,\u201d Poroshenko said.<\/p>\n<p>Nunes has attempted to hold the media accountable for misstatements about him in the past. He sued CNN for <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/08\/04\/rep-nunes-sues-msnbc-after-rachel-maddow-allegedly-smeared-him\/\">$435 million<\/a> for accusing him of being part of an opposition research project against Joe and Hunter Biden. In 2019, he sued Twitter for $250 million for silencing center-Right content. Judges dismissed both lawsuits.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/judge-rules-rachel-maddows-statements-cannot-reasonably-be-interpreted-as-allegations-of-fact\">https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/judge-rules-rachel-maddows-statements-cannot-reasonably-be-interpreted-as-allegations-of-fact<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The views expressed in this piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the Republican congressmen who most visibly opposed Democrats\u2019 mishandling of classified information has sued MSNBC\u2019s parent company on the grounds that Rachel Maddow defamed him.Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-612858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}