Court rules man called Trump 'pee tape' owner can sue Robert Mueller — just not for money
Georgian-American businessman Giorgi Rtskhiladze will be allowed to sue for being mentioned in Robert Mueller's final report over Russian election meddling, court documents show.
Rtskhiladze was named in the report, which he says has hurt his reputation. The U.S. Court of Appeals in the Washington, D.C. Circuit agreed on Friday that he can pursue a case, but he can't claim for damages, reported Politico's Kyle Cheney on X.
The Mueller report talked about the Russian interference in the 2016 election, and the investigation ultimately indicted a number of Americans and over a dozen Russian-affiliated hackers.
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Rtskhiladze claims that a footnote in the report misquotes a text message from former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and falsely calls him Russian.
It “could continue to harm Rtskhiladze,” the Appeals court agreed.
The U.S. Senate filed its own report that corrected those errors in Mueller's report, but the court agreed that it "does not extinguish the harm from an earlier government report."
“Congress neither speaks for DOJ, nor speaks infallibly. Either way, a court could redress the ongoing injury by ordering DOJ to correct the Mueller Report,” Judge Justin Walker wrote in the ruling.
Rtskhiladze alleged that he was defamed and asked for damages using the Privacy Act. However, that act says there must be proof of "intentional or willful" conduct. He was unable to prove that.
Thus, Rtskhiladze “has not even attempted to meet the Privacy Act’s requirements” and instead “cites common-law defamation precedents,” Walker then writes.
Rtskhiladze worked for the Trump organization on a possible Trump project. His text message to Cohen in 2016 said: “Stopped flow of some tapes from Russia.” The Mueller report omits the word "some."
Rtskhiladze's suit claimed not having the word is “significant,” as it “suggests familiarity” with the "tapes." The filing, he said, also says that the footnote excluded additional text messages referring to the "tapes" in which he says he was "not sure of the content."
Cohen maintains that no such tape has been found after many years of searching, and all claims by individuals who stated they had the tape have been debunked.
"I don't believe that either the event took place or that a tape exists," he told Raw Story.
Rtskhiladze's next steps would be a lawsuit in which he could depose Robert Mueller, but the end goal remains unclear since the court ruled he could not be awarded damages.