House Intelligence Ranking Member Devin Nunes has doubled down on his promise to sue CNN and the Daily Beast for their report claiming he met with a Ukrainian prosecutor to push for an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden.
Last week allegations surfaced alleging that the Republican Representative met with Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin in Vienna in 2018 to dig up dirt on Joe Biden and push for an investigation into his son Hunter.
The report was published by CNN and the Daily Beast, leading Nunes to slam the outlets and their reporting as ‘demonstrably false and scandalous’, while vowing to sue both publications.
On Sunday speaking over the phone on Sunday Morning Futures he said: ‘We are going to take both CNN and the Daily Beast likely into federal court, right after Thanksgiving and we hope they cooperate.’
Nunes has been an outspoken critic of the GOP’s involvement in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump as well as the media’s coverage of it.
House Intelligence Ranking Member Devin Nunes doubled down on his promise to sue CNN and the Daily Beast while speaking on Fox’s Sunday Morning Futures on Sunday after the outlets reported he met with Ukrainian officials for dirt on Joe Biden in Vienna in 2018
In the CNN and Daily Beast reports the outlets said that the attorneys for Lev Parnas, one of Rudy Giuliani’s ‘fixers’ who was indicted last month, said their client is willing to tell Congress about phone calls and meetings in Vienna in 2018 between Nunes and Shokin.
Parnas was indicted in October for conspiring to violate the ban on foreign donations.
Nunes says that the outlets were ‘likely conspiring to obstruct justice’ by working with someone under indictment.
On Sunday when asked about how he felt on the new allegations against him on meeting with Shokin, Nunes said: ‘I’ve been used to this for the last three years.’
‘The House Intelligence Committee Republicans, we continue to expose Democrat corruption over and over again. And what always happens is right when we expose them… they go out to kill the messenger,’ Nunes said on Fox.
‘So this week – another fake news story. The problem with this week’s fake news story is we actually caught them. And we caught them badly and it also involves criminal activity. And so what we’re going to do, we are going to take both CNN and the Daily Beast likely into federal court, right after Thanksgiving and we hope they cooperate,’ he added.
‘It is not OK to work with someone who has been indicted on [a] serious federal crime, to build a media narrative and dirty up a member of Congress,’ he said.
Nunes then touted that subpoenas will be filed soon and it will be ‘fun’ to take the media outlets to court.
‘So we hope that CNN and Daily Beast will cooperate with the court. They should comply with the subpoenas once we file this and go through different depositions. It should be fun,’ Nunes said.
‘What we’re going to do, we are going to take both CNN and the Daily Beast likely into federal court, right after Thanksgiving and we hope they cooperate,’ Nunes (right) said
Nunes reportedly met with fired Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin (above) in Vienna in 2018
Host Maria Bartiromo then asked if he really was in Vienna in 2018 and if he met with Shokin.
Nunes skirted around the issue and said: ‘I really want to answer all these questions and I promise you I will come back on the show and answer these questions but because there’s criminal activity here, we’re gonna file all this and everyone will know all the facts.’
He then turned and said he cant ‘debate this out with public media when 90 percent of the media are totally corrupt.’
‘I will win in court,’ he reiterated.
He then said it’s ‘very likely’ that CNN and Daily Beast committed criminal activity by publishing their report.
‘It’s very likely [they committed a crime], or they’re an accessory to it,’ he said.
On Friday Nunes shared a statement with Brietbart when he first threatened with a lawsuit.
‘These demonstrably false and scandalous stories published by the Daily Beast and CNN are the perfect example of defamation and reckless disregard for the truth,’ he said.
‘Some political operative offered these fake stories to at least five different media outlets before finding someone irresponsible enough to publish them. I look forward to prosecuting these cases, including the media outlets, as well as the sources of their fake stories, to the fullest extent of the law. I intend to hold the Daily Beast and CNN accountable for their actions. They will find themselves in court soon after Thanksgiving,’ he added.
In the CNN and Daily Beast reports the outlets said that the attorneys for Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani who was indicted last month, said their client is willing to tell Congress about phone calls and meetings in Vienna in 2018 between Nunes and Shokin. In that meeting he allegedly asked for dirt on Joe Biden
However, it’s not clear just what Nunes could sue the publications for. If he sues for defamation he has to prove that the outlets acted with malice and reckless disregard for the truth.
However, CNN and the Daily Beast reported statements from Parnas’ attorneys that were released.
Furthermore the Daily Beast sighted Congressional records showing that Nunes traveled to Europe from November 30 to December 3 in 2018. Three of his aides also travelled with him according to the records. The U.S. Government funds paid about $63,000 for the trip.
The impeachment inquiry is centered on Trump’s push to have Ukraine investigate whether Biden acted corruptly in Shokin’s firing.
Giuliani claims that Shokin was booted out of office in 2016 under pressure from then Vice President Joe Biden, in a bid to end investigations into Burisma, the gas company where Biden’s son Hunter sat on the board.
However, Biden supporters dismiss this as a conspiracy theory, saying Biden put pressure on Ukraine to fire Shokin because the prosecutor failed to tackle corruption.