Judge Says Devin Nunes' Family Must Reveal Who Is Funding Their Defamation Lawsuit

The family of Republican Congressman Devin Nunes has filed a lawsuit against Esquire magazine over a story that claimed the family farm, NuStar Farms, was hiring undocumented immigrants. The only problem is that even the family appears to not know who is paying their legal fees, as they've only had to pay a $500 one-time fee. The judge this week ruled that the family must disclose their mysterious benefactor as the case continues. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

A judge is demanding to know where in the heck the Nunes family is getting the money to pay for a defamation lawsuit that they filed against Esquire Magazine. Now, if you'll remember a couple of years ago, and we talked about this story, Esquire Magazine ran a story saying that NuStar Farms, the farm owned by the family of Devin Nunes, was hiring undocumented immigrants. Well, the Nunes family got angry and they sued Esquire for $20 million, alleging that they had been defamed by this article from Esquire. The only problem is nobody knows, and this includes some members of the family, nobody knows who's paying the legal fees for the Nunes family. So a judge this week, judge Mark Roberts of Iowa's Northern district, said, Nunes shares the same lawyer as the family in other lawsuits he has filed against media companies and people he claims have defamed or conspired against him since 2019. Earlier this summer, Nunes' brother said he had quote, no idea who was funding their lawsuit and that his family only paid one $500 fee.

That's actually, that's from the Fresno Bee and this is what the judge said. Anthony Nunes' lack of knowledge about who is paying the attorneys prosecuting this action raises legitimate concern about not only who may be in charge of the lawsuit, but also whether plaintiffs are still the real parties of interest. See, what the judge is worried about here is that there is a puppet master behind the scenes pulling the strings. And of course, since the family is using the same lawyer that Devin himself has used in multiple different lawsuits, the judge kind of thinks that, yeah, Devin's probably paying the legal fees, even though he's not a plaintiff in this particular lawsuit, which by the way is actually not illegal. Okay. Let's get that straight. It does however, raise questions about the validity of the family's claims of defamation against Esquire. As we all know, Devin Nunes has filed multiple different defamation lawsuits. You know, everyone from newspapers to parody Twitter accounts, and so far, he does not have any success whatsoever with any of those lawsuits.

So perhaps, perhaps he is the one paying for this. It's a very real possibility, of course we don't know for certain. But maybe he decided, all right, you know what, rest of the Nunes family here, why don't you guys file this particular lawsuit? I mean, you're technically, your names are on the farm and then that way I don't have to be involved. But don't worry. I'll pay for it. Again, that's a possible scenario. We don't know what's actually happening. And based on their own statements, the family, at least some members don't even know what's happening. They just know we're involved in a lawsuit for $20 million and it looks like we're getting a lawyer for free. Yeah. That's not how things work. And now in order for this case to proceed, you're going to have to tell the judge who exactly is paying for this lawsuit so the court can make sure you Nunes family, aren't the ones getting screwed here.