Conservative powerhouse alleges ‘actual malice’ by famous name
The legacy media have been on a campaign over recent years to attack and make insinuations about conservative leaders, including those members in Congress.
After all, they’re public figures and it’s almost impossible for them to overcome the high hurdles in America’s defamation law that requires them to show “actual malice” in the false attacks.
But the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has found that’s exactly what Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., has done in his case against Esquire and one of its reporters.
A report from Courthouse News said the appeals court said the publication must go to trial on the claims by Nunes because, on its claim a family farm was hiding a “politically explosive secret,” “A reasonable reader could conclude, from reading the article as a whole, that the identified ‘secret’ is ‘politically explosive’ because Nunes knew about his family’s employment of undocumented labor.”