Nunes defamation lawsuit over Rachel Maddow comment dismissed

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif) against MSNBC personality Rachel Maddow nearly five years ago.

U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel ruled last week that Nunes failed to prove Maddow and her team at the network acted with actual malice during a discussion about a package Nunes received addressed to him from Andrii Derkach, a Ukrainian legislator with ties to Russian officials and intelligence services, while he was the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

“The Court concludes that no reasonable jury could find that NBCU made the statement with constitutionally-defined actual malice,” Castel wrote.

MSNBC is owned by NBC Universal as part of the Comcast corporate umbrella.

Nunes, a longtime ally of President Trump, sued Maddow in 2021 alleging she and the network “harbor an institutional hostility, hatred, extreme bias, spite and ill-will” toward the Republican.

The suit specifically took issue with statements made by Maddow during her show on March 18 of that year, during which she suggested that Nunes refused to turn over a package he reportedly received from the suspected Russian agent to the FBI.  

Castel in 2022 ruled Nunes’s case could proceed, writing his attorneys had “plausibly allege[d] actual malice” but did not make a determination about the merits of the former congressman’s claim against the network.

Maddow has for years attacked Trump, who has blasted Comcast over NBC News coverage of his administration and suggested critics such as Maddow be taken off the air.

After leaving Congress, Nunes joined Trump as CEO of Truth Social.

—Updated at 1:47 p.m. EDT