“Devin Nunes is a former Congressman from California who served as Ranking Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from January 2019 to January 2022. On February 21, 2020, the Washington Post published an article entitled ‘Senior intelligence official told lawmakers that Russia wants to see Trump reelected.’ The article described a briefing given to members of the House Intelligence Committee by Shelby Pierson, a senior intelligence official, in which Pierson informed the lawmakers that Russia had ‘developed a preference’ for then-President Trump and wanted to see him reelected. According to the article, President Trump was ‘furious’ when he heard about the briefing and blamed Joseph Maguire, the acting Director of National Intelligence. Maguire had been under consideration for the role of permanent Director of National Intelligence, but ‘Trump’s opinion shifted… when he heard from a Republican ally about the official’s remarks’… Nunes brought suit against the Washington Post’s parent company, WP Company, LLC.” ”

Nunes alleged that the Post defamed him by implying that (1) he ‘lied to and deceived the President of the United States’… Nunes has not plausibly pled a claim of defamation by implication. To establish such a claim, Nunes had to allege facts showing that (1) ‘a defamatory inference can reasonably be drawn’ from the statement(s), and (2) ‘the particular manner or language in which the true facts are conveyed’ supplies ‘additional, affirmative evidence suggesting that the defendant intends or endorses the defamatory inference[.]’ In considering claims of defamation by implication, courts ‘must be vigilant not to allow an implied defamatory meaning to be manufactured from words not reasonably capable of sustaining such meaning'” says the decision from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, which, is actually pretty embarrassing that Nunes could not prove the Post lied when they reported he had lied to Trump, who is his actual boss now.