A federal judge has dismissed a long-running defamation lawsuit brought by former Rep. Devin Nunes of California against MSNBC host Rachel Maddow and NBC Universal nearly five years after the case was initially filed.
In a ruling issued last week, U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel concluded that Nunes failed to demonstrate Maddow acted with actual malice when she discussed a package Nunes received from Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Derkach during a 2020 broadcast of “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
“The Court concludes that no reasonable jury could find that [NBC Universal] made the statement with constitutionally-defined actual malice,” Castel wrote in his decision.
The lawsuit centered on comments Maddow made during her March 18, 2020, broadcast, in which she alleged Nunes had failed to share with the FBI a package he received from Derkach, a Ukrainian legislator with alleged ties to Russian intelligence. At the time, Nunes was the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Nunes, a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump, filed the suit in 2021, accusing Maddow and MSNBC of defamation. His complaint claimed the network and its prime-time host “harbor an institutional hostility, hatred, extreme bias, spite and ill-will” toward him.
While Castel had previously allowed the case to proceed in 2022—writing at the time that Nunes had “plausibly allege[d] actual malice”—the latest ruling found the former congressman ultimately failed to meet the high legal standard required for public figures to prove defamation.
The package at the center of the controversy was reportedly sent by Derkach, whom the U.S. Treasury Department later sanctioned as a Russian agent. Maddow referenced the delivery during her broadcast, suggesting Nunes had not turned over the materials to federal investigators.
Maddow, known for her critical coverage of Trump and his allies, has frequently drawn the ire of the former president and his supporters. Trump has publicly criticized Comcast, the parent company of NBC Universal and MSNBC, for its political coverage, and has singled out Maddow as a target of his complaints.
Nunes left Congress at the end of 2021 to become CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, the social media platform launched by the former president. This week, Trump Media reported a $20 million financial loss based largely on legal expenses; its litigation-related costs were not connected to Nunes’ lawsuit against NBC Universal.
Comcast has not publicly commented on the ruling.
It is the second high-profile lawsuit that Nunes has lost in recent years. In 2019, while still a lawmaker in Congress, Nunes filed a defamation lawsuit that sought to unmask the real-world identity of a person on Twitter (now X). The lawsuit involved a parody Twitter account called “Devin Cow,” which posted as if it were a bovine on Nunes’ Central California farm. Nunes ultimately withdrew the lawsuit amid several legal setbacks and rising litigation-related expenses.
