Ranking House intelligence Committee Republican Devin Nunes filed a $435 million lawsuit on Tuesday against “the mother of fake news” CNN over a November 22 report, which alleged that disgraced Giuliani associate Lev Parnas is willing to tell impeachment investigators that Nunes dug up dirt on Joe Biden with former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin during a 2018 meeting in Vienna.
“CNN is eroding the fabric of America, proselytizing, sowing distrust and disharmony. It must be held accountable,” Nunes alleges in the suit, and claims that the article “intentionally falsified” key facts. Nunes says he never visited Austria last year, cites a Washington Post piece in which a source close to Shokin denies the meeting took place, and denies any contact with Parnas over the trip.
“From all the evidence in its possession, CNN was well-aware that Parnas was a renowned liar, a fraudster, a hustler, an opportunist with delusions of grandeur, a man in financial in extremis,” Nunes’s lawsuit adds.
Earlier Tuesday, the Democratic Intelligence Committee released a report on impeachment showing calls between Nunes and Parnas dated from April, but no record of any contact in December 2018.
CNN quotes Joseph A. Bondy, Parnas’s attorney, who says that “Parnas learned from former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin that Nunes had met with Shokin in Vienna last December.” Following the release of the CNN report, Nunes told Breitbart that he intended to sue.
“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,” Nunes said in a statement. “I intend to hold the Daily Beast and CNN accountable for their actions. They will find themselves in court soon after Thanksgiving.”