Tag: Lawsuit

Categories
Elections GOP

‘Deceitful Fraud’ Kari Lake Is Facing A Massive Lawsuit That Could Cost Her A Fortune

Having spent a year and a half insisting that she actually won the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election, Republican Kari Lake is finally starting to see that her scorched earth policy of attacking everyone who refused to help her overturn the results of that election do indeed come with a price.

What price? Well, perhaps millions in compensatory and punitive damages as the result of a massive defamation lawsuit filed against her by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer.

Mark Z. Barabak of the Los Angeles Times notes that Lake may finally be held responsible for her irresponsible words and actions.

Last week, a top election official in Arizona, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, filed a defamation lawsuit against his fellow Republican, saying Lake’s blatant lies have cost him friends and lifelong relationships. Her malicious incitement has also resulted in death threats, he said, and harassment aimed at him and his wife.

“Rather than accept political defeat, rather than get a new job, [Lake] has sought to undermine confidence in our elections and has mobilized millions of her followers against me,” Richer wrote in the Arizona Republic. “Her defamatory allegations have unleashed violent vitriol and other dire consequences.”

Richer has a hell of a case, too, Barabak explains.

Her farrago of falsehoods includes allegations that Richer manipulated the printing of election ballots and “inserted” 300,000 phony votes into the final count to prevent Republican candidates, including Lake, from winning.

Lake’s phony claims were repeated numerous times, the lawsuit documents, at political rallies, during podcasts and on social media. Richer seeks unspecified monetary damages as well as a court order determining Lake’s statements were false and requiring her to delete them.

Defamation lawsuits aren’t easy to win. The bar for victory is high, but it’s not impossible as we witnessed recently when a jury awarded writer E. Jean Carroll $5 million in damages against former president Donald Trump for sexually assaulting her and then lying about the matter.

Additionally, Fox “News” also forked over $785.7 million to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems for the lies some of the network’s hosts told about the 2020 presidential election being stolen with the use of voting machines, even going so far as to suggest that the machines had been hacked and manipulated by China and Venezuela.

Kari Lake deserves to be hit with a massive dose of karma, and one that takes an enormous bite out of the money she’s grifted from supporters since she lost in 2022 would be a nice start at righting the many wrongs she’s committed for her own self-aggrandizement.

 

Categories
Elections Fox News

The Dominion Lawsuit Is About To Get MUCH WORSE For Fox – Here’s Why

The $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News became the top media story of last week when portions of a court filing by the company became public, including testimony from Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch, who was forced to admit under oath that some of the network’s hosts did indeed lie when they told viewers the 2020 presidential election had been “stolen” from Donald Trump.

Portions of that filing, however, were redacted (i.e. blacked out) at the request of Fox News, and that is leading some legal and media experts to suggest that things are about to get significantly worse for Fox when the redacted sections are made public.

Washington Post media critic Eric Wemple has looked closely at the redactions and writes they suggest the biggest bombshells are still hiding beneath those black boxes.

Impenetrable black expanses in the filing thwart a complete understanding of what was happening as Fox News faced down a ratings collapse. We do know what happened when White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich fact-checked a stolen election claim made by Trump: Host Tucker Carlson advocated for her firing. Similar tensions arose when anchor Neil Cavuto cut away from a news conference at which Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, was inveighing against the election. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Cavuto said on air. “She’s charging the other side as welcoming fraud and welcoming illegal voting. Unless she has more details to back that up, I can’t in good countenance continue showing you this.”

There are about 35 redacted passages in the “opening narrative” of Dominion’s lawsuit, Wemple notes, all of which were made at the request of Fox, and that alone tells us Fox is trying to hide something. But what, exactly?

The New York Times and NPR have filed a motion to unseal the redacted sections, and given that the lawsuit was filed in Delaware, which has very strong laws supporting press freedom, it seems we’ll know what’s behind those blacked out portions before much longer.

Dominion also wants to see those redactions made clear for all to see:

In a Feb. 17 filing, Dominion itself challenged the confidential treatment of material in three recent briefs by itself, Fox News and Fox Corp. “All the redactions across all three briefs are there at the Fox Defendants’ request,” the document notes.

Given what we already know regarding Fox’s lies in the days after the election was called for President Joe Biden, it’s safe to assume that the redactions could be what finally results in the complete financial meltdown of the Fox empire. And that would be a very good thing for American democracy.

Categories
Gun Crime Gun Nuts

Kyle Rittenhouse Facing Massive Financial Lawsuit From Victim He Shot In Kenosha

Though he was found not guilty for the murder of two men in Kenosha, Wisconsin back in 2020, Kyle Rittenhouse is now facing having to pay a massive financial settlement to a man he shot who survived and claims he is owed money for what he went through as a result of the attack.

Fox News reports that Gaige Grosskreutz is seeking economic losses, “damages for emotional distress, humiliation, loss of enjoyment of life, and other pain and suffering on all claims,” and punitive damages.

“Astonishingly, the Kenosha Police Department, Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department, their supervising officials and police officers, and law enforcement officers from surrounding communities did not treat Defendant Rittenhouse or any of the other armed individuals patrolling the streets as a threat to the safety of themselves or the citizens they were sworn to protect,” states the lawsuit, which was obtained by Fox News Digital.

“Instead, the law enforcement Defendants deputized these armed individuals, conspired with them, and ratified their actions by letting them patrol the streets, armed with deadly weapons, to mete out justice as they saw fit,'” said the lawsuit filed Feb. 14 by attorneys Kimberley Motley of Motley Legal Services and E. Milo Schwab of Ascend Counsel.

Rittenhouse also shot two other men, Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, both of whom died.

At a trial held after the shootings, Rittenhouse claimed he acted in self-defense and was acquitted of homicide charges.

Asked about the new lawsuit, Rittenhouse said he’s ready “prove my innocence again,” but claimed it would come with a large price tag, an apparent attempt to get other to pay his legal expenses. He added:

“I guess it came as a shock to why he’s filing a lawsuit because he admitted that he pointed a gun in my face and that he chased me down.”

Grosskreutz, however, claims he “approached with his hands in the air to try to ease the situation and stop the killing.”

 

Categories
Right Wing Morons

Alex Jones Facing Financial Ruin As Sandy Hook Parents Seek Over $100 Million In Damages Today 

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones could be on the merge of discovering that the First Amendment has limits and does not allow a person to attack others with lies in an effort to demean their pain and suffering as testimony begins today in Texas to decide much he must pay the families of children slain in the 2912 Sandy Hook Elementary mass shooting that left 26 dead, including 20 children between the ages of six and seven.

According to the Associated Press, the parents suing Jones are seeking in excess of $100 million in damages. Such a judgement, attorneys for Jones allege, would lead to financial ruin for the controversial radio and podcast host.

The jury could deal Jones a major financial blow that would put his constellation of conspiracy peddling businesses into deeper jeopardy. He has already been banned from YouTube, Facebook and Spotify for violating their hate-speech policies and he claims he’s millions of dollars in debt — a claim the plaintiffs reject.

The trial involving the parents of two Sandy Hook families is only the start for Jones. Damages have yet to be awarded in separate defamation cases for other families of the 2012 massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.

During questioning of potential jurors, Jones’ attorney Andino Reynal conceded that his client is indeed a “very polarizing” and “controversial” figure, but urged to cap any damages at a miniscule $1.

“We’re very happy with the jury we’ve seated,” Reynal said. “It’s a very important First Amendment case. On trial right now is not just people’s freedom of speech, but it’s also people’s freedom to listen. To choose what they watch on television, to make those choices for themselves, instead of having a personal injury lawyer make those choices for them.”

Reynal neglected to mention that juries in both Texas and Connecticut have already found Jones liable for defamation after he suggested that the children and teachers slain at Sandy Hook Elementary were “crisis actors” who staged a fake shooting to increase the likelihood of gun control legislation in the United States.

Since being found liable, Jones has insisted that he’s already broke, claiming that he’s $20 million in debt and cannot possibly pay any judgements that may be assessed against him.

The plaintiffs, however, don’t believe Jones, and the facts simply don’t support his claims of poverty:

Court records show that Jones’ Infowars store, which sells nutritional supplements and survival gear, made more than $165 million between 2015 and 2018. Jones has also urged listeners on his Infowars program to donate money.

Hopefully, when all is said and done, Alex Jones won’t have a proverbial pot to piss in.

Categories
GOP

Appeals Court Slaps Down Devin Nunes For Filing Frivolous $435 Million Lawsuit Against CNN

A federal appeals court dealt a major slapdown to former Republican Congressman Devin Nunes, refusing to revive his $435 million defamation lawsuit against CNN and dismissing the the suit with prejudice.

According to Reuters:

In a 2-1 decision on Thursday, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said Nunes failed to seek a correction fast enough, or show he deserved “special damages” for economic loss.

Circuit Judge William Nardini said the trial judge “did not err” in finding that Nunes did not comply with applicable California law governing retractions, and thus his $435 million lawsuit should be dismissed with prejudice.

Nunes filed the lawsuit in response to an article which stated that Lev Parnas, a former associate of Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani would testify under oath to Congress that the California congressman met with a former Ukrainian prosecutor in 2018 for the purpose of “digging up dirt” on Joe Biden.

CNN drew Nunes’ ire due to a report on the network:

The former Republican congressman also objected to a broadcast of CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time,” where the reporter and host Chris Cuomo discussed his alleged role in “looking for dirt” on Biden and his son Hunter.

Nunes denied the accusations, said his reputation was damaged, and branded CNN “the mother of fake news.”

Ironically, all three of the judges on the Manhattan appeals court were appointed by Trump during his failed term as president.

Nunes is known for being extremely litigious, but he never wins, which makes you wonder why he wastes so much money taking losing issues to court in the first place.

Earlier this month, an appeals court refused to revive a $250 million lawsuit Nunes filed against the Washington Post, ruling he had “failed to plausibly allege a claim of defamation.”

Nunes resigned from Congress on January 1, 2022 to become chief executive officer of the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), which launched the social media site Truth Social. It is widely considered to be a massive failure.