Nunes Sues CNN, Denies Meeting Shokin

Chuck Ross

Politics, Americas

He wants $435 million in damages from 'the mother of fake news.'

Republican California Rep. Devin Nunes is adamantly denying that he traveled to Vienna last year and met with a former Ukrainian prosecutor to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, as CNN alleged in a story published last month.

“CNN is the mother of fake news,” Nunes said in a defamation lawsuit against the network filed Tuesday in federal court in Virginia.

“It is the least trusted name. CNN is eroding the fabric of America, proselytizing, sowing distrust and disharmony. It must be held accountable.”

Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, is suing CNN over a Nov. 22 report alleging that Lev Parnas, an embattled former associate of Rudy Giuliani, is willing to tell impeachment investigators that Nunes met in Vienna in December 2018 with Viktor Shokin, a former Ukrainian prosecutor.

Parnas’ lawyer, Joseph Bondy, told CNN reporter Vicky Ward that Parnas claims Shokin told him that he met with Nunes in the Austrian capital. Bondy also told CNN that Parnas claims he spoke with Nunes in the December 2018 timeframe.

After CNN published the story, Nunes issued a statement calling the report “demonstrably false.” The lawsuit is the first time he has denied specific claims in the CNN report.

“[Nunes] was not in Vienna in December 2018. Further, he has never met Shokin; never spoken to Shokin; and never communicated with Shokin,” Nunes lawyer Steven Biss says in the lawsuit.

Nunes accuses Parnas of fabricating the story after reviewing congressional records that showed that the Republican visited Europe between Nov. 30 and Dec. 3, 2018. But Nunes says that he only visited Malta and Libya during the overseas trip.