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| Rachel Maddow, David Nunes |
A federal judge has thrown out a defamation lawsuit filed by former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) against MSNBC host Rachel Maddow and NBC Universal, nearly five years after its initial filing.
U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel ruled last week that Nunes failed to prove Maddow acted with actual malice in a 2020 broadcast of “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
In his decision, Castel stated, “The Court concludes that no reasonable jury could find that [NBC Universal] made the statement with constitutionally-defined actual malice.”
The lawsuit stemmed from comments Maddow made on March 18, 2020, alleging that Nunes, then the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, failed to share with the FBI a package he received from Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Derkach, who has alleged ties to Russian intelligence.
Nunes, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, filed the suit in 2021, claiming Maddow and MSNBC defamed him with “institutional hostility, hatred, extreme bias, spite, and ill-will.”Castel’s ruling dismisses the case, finding insufficient evidence to support Nunes’ claims of defamation.