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You get a defamation suit! And you get a defamation suit! And YOU get a defamation suit! Everyone’s getting a defamation suit these days, thanks to conservative thought leader Rep. Devin Nunes, the influencer who started the trend when he sued a cow on Twitter for $250 million.
Now Fox News contributor Dan Bongino is joining the herd, hiring Nunes’ famous libelslander lawyer Steven Biss to make him whole after “a digital assassin owned and controlled by billionaire Clinton-devotees, Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg” destroyed his reputation by implying that his departure from NRATV might have been less than entirely voluntary. Yeah, it’s that kind of a complaint.
“The National Rifle Association’s media arm has dropped pro-Trump firebrand Dan Bongino from its lineup of conservative commentators,” is how Daily Beast reporter Lachlan Markay worded his article last December. Markay never said that Bongino had been fired, but according to Biss’ Law of Defamatory Gist, the only thing that matters is that Twitter decided to believe he had been — a reasonable assumption since the NRA was bleeding cash at the time — and laugh heartily about it.
Inveterate Trump-hater, Rick Wilson of Florida, republished the Daily Beast Article to his 649,000 Twitter followers together with the words, “Womp womp.” [https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/1072248324760195073]. Wilson imitated the noise made in old cartoons or on gameshows to indicate someone had done something embarrassingly dumb, or failed at something, or whatever they did backfired on them (first womp is a higher frequency sound than the second womp).
News you can use!
Bongino insists that he “simply decided not to renew his contract,” although he and the NRA refused multiple requests for comment before the story went to press, a fact Bongino confirmed with screenshots of his texts with Markay.
From this, Bongino adduces proof that Markay’s source must have told him that Bongino jumped and wasn’t pushed. Which may or may not be true, but Bongino hasn’t exactly bolstered his case for defamation of public figure by demonstrating that Markay made repeated attempts to get his side of the story.
Bongino is similarly blasé about venue, concluding without evidence that “Daily Beast’s defamation was purposefully directed at Plaintiff in Florida,” borne out of a “desire to hurt Plaintiff because of Plaintiff’s support for President Trump and because of Plaintiff’s conservative ideology.”
He claims defamation per se because saying that his contract was not renewed “impute[s] to Plaintiff an unfitness to perform the duties of an office or employment for profit, or the want of integrity in the discharge of the duties of such office or employment.” Bongino accuses the Daily Beast of violating Florida’s consumer protection laws by making false business claims, which is a … creative interpretation of the statute.
All of this is par for the course in a Steven Biss lawsuit. But how has this tough guy, who scorns liberals and their pathetic safe spaces, actually been injured?
As a direct result of Daily Beast’s defamation, Plaintiff suffered substantial presumed and actual damages and loss, including, but not limited to, pain and suffering, emotional distress and trauma, insult, anguish, stress and anxiety, public ridicule, humiliation, embarrassment, indignity, damage and injury to his personal and professional reputations, loss of business and income, attorney’s fees, costs, and other out-of-pocket expenses in the amount of $10,000,000.00 or such other amount as is determined by the Jury.
Bongino, who swears on his MAGA hat that he quit the NRA job, is suing the Daily Beast for making him sad and unemployable. His reputation is ruined! All he has to fall back on is his 1.3 million Twitter followers, 611,000 Facebook friends, daily podcast, compensated speaking gigs at Republican events, appearances in Trump campaign videos, and his regular gig as a Fox contributor.
Clearly poor Dan Bongino’s life will never be exactly the same as it was before people who already think he’s a raging loon spent a pleasant afternoon laughing at him on Twitter. Some scars only heal with the application of $15 million.
“The liberal activists inside of many media outlets have gotten away with character assassination for way too long,” Bongino quotes himself saying on his own website. “The Daily Beast tried to smear me, and I guess they thought I would just take it. They were wrong.”
Lotsa luck, Florida Man.
Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.