Devin Nunes, who used to sue media companies, is struggling to run one

A roadside billboard expresses opposition to then-Rep. Devin Nunes

Oct. 23, 2024 3 AM PT

Who would have guessed that Devin Nunes, who left Congress to run former President Trump’s media company, would be accused of mismanagement and cronyism?

Well, me, for one.

It’s not that I am any kind of oracle. It’s just that I’ve followed Nunes’ career as an ultra-litigious Trump defender who is afflicted by a world-class intolerance for perceived slights.

Before taking the helm of Trump Media in 2022, Nunes had a master’s degree in agriculture but little hands-on business experience. He was involved in his family’s San Joaquin Valley dairy farm decades ago; when he was 14, he has recounted, he bought seven head of young cattle to raise and sell. I guess this explains his tolerance for the, ah, stench of MAGA bull.

Given his disdain for media in general and free speech in particular, as evidenced by a series of lawsuits against news organizations and other critics, putting Nunes in charge of a fledgling media empire was a bizarre move — unless the company is all about cozying up to the deep-pocketed sort of people who would benefit from a second Trump administration.

According to documents obtained by ProPublica, an unnamed Trump Media whistleblower recently asked the company’s board of directors to fire Nunes. One person with knowledge of the situation told ProPublica that the complaint alleged “misuse of funds, hiring of foreign contractors and interfering with product development.” (A Trump Media spokesperson denied the charges and accused the nonprofit journalism organization of a campaign to damage the company.)

Turmoil ensued: The company’s chief operating officer and chief product officer resigned. In any case, with almost no revenue to speak of and no indication that its Truth Social is competitive with major social media platforms, analysts consider Trump Media & Technology Group a meme stock. Its value is based entirely on the value Trump’s supporters place on him.

In recent weeks, with polls tight and the prospect of a second Trump term looming, shares of Trump Media have massively rebounded from a precipitous fall. Incredibly, the company is worth around $6 billion, putting Trump’s 59% stake at more than $3 billion. But if Trump loses in November, bye-bye, inflated valuation.

“It’s really simple,” Matthew Tuttle, the chief executive of Tuttle Capital Management, told CNN. “People realize that if Trump gets elected, this stock has the potential to do something. And if he doesn’t get elected, it probably goes to zero.”

In any case, one enterprise Nunes has mastered is filing doomed lawsuits. Between 2019 and 2023, he filed at least 11 of them, including defamation suits against Twitter parody accounts that posed as his cow and his mother. He tried to sue Twitter too, but a judge ruled that the social media company was protected by the Communications Decency Act, which gives such online platforms immunity from civil liability.

Nunes also sued McClatchy, the company that owns his hometown newspaper, the Fresno Bee, for defamation. He asked for $150 million in damages but ultimately dropped the lawsuit.

In 2019, he sued Fresno-area activists who had mounted a campaign to get Nunes to stop calling himself a “farmer” on the ballot. Nunes later quietly withdrew that lawsuit.

It was a very busy year for Nunes’ attorneys. He also sued Hearst and the journalist Ryan Lizza over an Esquire story that alleged — in a lighthearted, faux-investigative manner — that Nunes’ family had secretly moved its dairy operations to Iowa and implied that they employed illegal immigrants. After several court go-rounds, the case was dismissed last year.

Let’s see. Who else did the co-sponsor of the Discouraging Frivolous Lawsuits Act frivolously sue that year?

He took aim at the liberal nonprofit Campaign for Accountability and the research firm Fusion GPS, the source of the infamous Steele dossier, which contained unverified gossip about Trump. Nunes, then the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, claimed the organizations conspired to hinder his investigation of the Steele dossier. That lawsuit was dismissed in 2020.

The lawsuit-happy former dairy farmer sued CNN for defamation after the network reported that he had traveled to Vienna to get dirt on Joe Biden. That lawsuit, which asked for $435 million, was dismissed in 2021.

In 2022, Nunes again sued CNN, and its host Jake Tapper, who reported that Nunes had reposted a disgusting MAGA meme about Paul Pelosi on Truth Social. Pelosi, the husband of former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, had been attacked by a stranger in their San Francisco home. Nunes’ attorneys claimed that Tapper insinuated that Nunes “has a depraved mind and that he acted immorally, fraudulently, unprofessionally, spread lies about Paul Pelosi, and disparaged and defamed Paul Pelosi.” (I couldn’t have put it better myself.) That lawsuit was dismissed in 2023.

I can find only one instance in which Nunes was not essentially laughed out of court. In 2021, he sued NBCUniversal, the parent company of MSNBC, alleging that Rachel Maddow had libeled him when she said he failed to turn over to the FBI a package that he had received from a Russian agent. In 2022, a judge ruled that it was plausible that Maddow knew the claim was untrue and has allowed the case to proceed.

My favorite empty Nunes legal threat is the one he once made against a fellow Californian, Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of Torrance. Lieu said Nunes had conspired with Lev Parnas, the Russian-born Rudy Giuliani associate, to undermine the U.S. government. (In 2021, Parnas was sentenced to prison for making illegal donations to Trump’s 2020 campaign, and just last month, he tearfully apologized to Hunter Biden for pushing the Trump/Giuliani/Nunes-endorsed lie that as vice president, Joe Biden took actions in Ukraine to benefit his son.)

“I welcome any lawsuit from your client and look forward to taking discovery of Congressman Nunes,” Lieu responded. “Or, you can take your letter and shove it.”

I guess they shoved it: Miraculously, no lawsuit was ever filed.

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