Republican ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes was the target of articles from CNN and The Daily Beast that reported he met with Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas to discuss digging up dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden . The bombshell reports implicate Nunes in the alleged Ukraine scandal his committee is investigating, in which Donald Trump is accused of working with Giuliani to pressure Ukraine into investigating Biden and his son, Hunter, Newsweek reports.
Breitbart reports that Nunes intends to sue both CNN and The Daily Beast for the pieces, which he claims are not true.
“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,” Nunes said to Breitbart News .
According to Nunes, a political operative offered the “fake stories” to at least five outlets before finding takers. Nunes said he intends to punish both the media outlets and the sources 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.”
During the impeachment probe, Nunes has reportedly pushed the theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 presidential election in favor of Hillary Clinton — a theory that was blasted by Fiona Hill , the top official on Russian affairs at the National Security Council, during her Thursday testimony to House investigators.
Lawyers for Parnas, Joseph Bondy, and Ed MacMahon reportedly said Nunes made a secret trip to Vienna in December 2018. During this trip, Parnas allegedly helped Nunes arrange meetings with Ukrainian officials, including ousted Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
CNN and The Daily Beast both claim to have reached out to Nunes for comment for their pieces but claim their requests were ignored.
Bondy and MacMahon also claim that Parnas will comply with a Congressional subpoena as part of the impeachment probe into Trump. In addition, Bondy claims that Parnas has “hard” evidence that proves he met with Trump to discuss alleged investigations into Biden and Hunter.
Defamation deplorer @DevinNunes didn’t feel that way in 2010 when he celebrated the free speech of GOP protesters shouting the N-word at civil rights icon @repjohnlewis .
But @DevinCow triggered him, so he’s gotta sue because free speech #ThursdayThoughts pic.twitter.com/Qm66LHtgc4
— Grant Stern (@grantstern) March 21, 2019
Nunes has been in the spotlight recently due to his role in the impeachment probe and has faced a great deal of scrutiny. As The Inquisitr reported, Scott Dworkin, co-founder of the activist Democratic Coalition group, recently uncovered a video in which Nunes defends the use of the n-word against civil rights leader and Georgia Representative John Lewis.
“There’s people that have every right to say what they want. If they wanna smear someone, they can do it,” Nunes told the C-Span Washington Journal program in the video.
Per Salon , Nunes was reportedly defending Tea Party protesters in their battle against Democrats’ “totalitarian tactics.”