{"id":33157,"date":"2023-06-09T10:48:13","date_gmt":"2023-06-09T16:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lauren-boebert-sued-for-defamation-in-federal-court-by-activist\/"},"modified":"2023-06-09T16:48:13","modified_gmt":"2023-06-09T16:48:13","slug":"lauren-boebert-sued-for-defamation-in-federal-court-by-activist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lauren-boebert-sued-for-defamation-in-federal-court-by-activist\/","title":{"rendered":"Lauren Boebert sued for defamation in federal court by activist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Republican
Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado speaks during a debate May 26 at the Sky Ute Resort and Casino in Ignacio. (William Woody for Colorado Newsline)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A North Carolina political activist filed a defamation lawsuit against U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Silt in federal court Thursday.<\/p>\n

Plaintiffs David Wheeler, who last year publicized information about Boebert in an effort to derail her re-election bid, and the super American Muckrakers PAC claim that Boebert defamed Wheeler by falsely accusing him of defaming her.<\/p>\n

Boebert and \u201cJohn Does,\u201d to be named later, are identified as defendants.<\/p>\n

The complaint, filed against the Republican in U.S. District Court of Colorado, alleges that Boebert made \u201cmaliciously false statements\u201d about Wheeler and American Muckrakers PAC, of which he is president, on multiple occasions last summer, particularly during broadcasts of TV and radio host Sean Hannity\u2019s shows.<\/p>\n

Wheeler in March told Newsline<\/a> he was considering whether to identify Boebert-aligned media entities, such as Fox News and Hannity, as defendants. Hannity is discussed extensively in Wheeler\u2019s complaint and is alleged to have provided a platform for and amplified false assertions made by Boebert.<\/p>\n

Fox personality Tomi Lahren is also singled out in the complaint as having provided a platform for Boebert to allegedly defame Wheeler.<\/p>\n

Newsline requested a comment from Boebert\u2019s office but had not received a reply at the time of publication.<\/p>\n

Wheeler previously brought a similar lawsuit<\/a> against Boebert in a North Carolina state court last year, but the judge dismissed the case<\/a>, saying that the proper venue for it was in Colorado.<\/p>\n

American Muckrakers PAC last year exposed unflattering information<\/a> about former Republican U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina and is credited with helping to turn voters against the representative, who lost his primary bid.<\/p>\n

The group then targeted Boebert. Wheeler and American Muckrakers PAC, citing sources close to Boebert, published information<\/a> about Boebert that appeared to run counter to her political stance against abortion, among other allegations. The most notable release of information came in a June 14 news release<\/a> that attracted national media attention.<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s claims about Boebert in some cases lacked <\/a>corroborating evidence or were shown to be false<\/a>. But Wheeler stands by his main allegations against Boebert, and the lawsuit notably asserts that \u201cBoebert was aware that she had\u201d worked as a paid escort, had two abortions and used illegal drugs, even as she accused Wheeler and American Muckrakers PAC of publishing \u201cfalse statements knowing they were completely fabricated,\u201d characterized the statements as \u201cdefamation\u201d and said she was \u201cmoving forward with a lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boebert never followed through with her threat to sue Wheeler and American Muckrakers PAC.<\/p>\n

A key difference between the Colorado and North Carolina lawsuits is that the case filed Thursday invokes Colorado\u2019s anti-SLAPP law<\/a>. Enacted in 2019, the statute, concerning strategic lawsuits against public participation, protects Coloradans<\/a> who exercise free speech rights from meritless lawsuits. Wheeler claims Boebert\u2019s threats of litigation are subject to sanction under Colorado\u2019s anti-SLAPP law, and he wants the lawsuit to help develop case law around the statute.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case is filed in part to extend existing precedent establishing the meaning of Colorado\u2019s law so that it provides the protection intended by our legislators in enacting the statute for the protection of citizens\u2019 rights as plaintiffs as well as defendants,\u201d the suit says.<\/p>\n

Wheeler and his attorney, Dan Ernst, who is based in Denver and specializes in defamation, have communicated through letters and email with legal counsel and other representatives for Fox News and Hannity, according to copies of the communication obtained by Newsline from a source familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n

According to the communication, Wheeler and Ernst indicated that their dispute with Fox News could be resolved if the company retracted allegedly defamatory statements about Wheeler and allowed him to appear on Hannity\u2019s show \u201cto correct the record,\u201d as Ernst put it in a letter to Steven P. Mandell, outside counsel to Fox and Hannity. Mandell in a March 19 letter to Wheeler flatly rejected the proposal and wrote that \u201cthere is no merit to any of your claims.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wheeler in a March 20 email addressed to Fox\u2019s top brass, including founder Rupert Murdoch and Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch, as well as Hannity, Wheeler repeated the proposal in colorful terms: \u201cWhat do you say about a good ol\u2019 western shootout between Boebert and me on Sean\u2019s show as a friendly way to resolve this and avoid (expletive) lawyers, and courts?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mandell again rebuffed Wheeler\u2019s request to appear on Hannity\u2019s show in an April 5 letter to Ernst.<\/p>\n

Wheeler\u2019s lawsuit comes less than two months after Fox agreed to pay Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million in a defamation case<\/a>. He is asking the court to award him an unspecified amount in damages.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Newsline, vist www.coloradonewsline.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colorado lawsuit, filed by David Wheeler of American Muckrakers PAC, cites state\u2019s anti-SLAPP statute<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[488,981,28,1373,367],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-33157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-civil","tag-colorado-3rd-congressional-district","tag-headlines","tag-litigation","tag-u-s-rep-lauren-boebert"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33157"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=33157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}