Didn’t someone (Lindsey Graham?) say that if Cruz was shot on the floor of the Senate, and the murder trial jury was made up of Senator’s, there would be chance of a conviction?
Nope–American Muckrakers PAC has as its largest donor the Moe Davis for Congress campaign, a Democratic campaign.
Moe Davis was Cawthorn’s 2020 dem opponent in the general for those not in the know.
Here’s a Cawthorn ad about retired USAF colonel Moe Davis…
I can see why he might hold a grudge.
Boebert’s move: a Defamation lawsuit:
Which is cool. The PAC will either have to put up or shut up ($$$). If they actually have compelling evidence for their allegations, then they’ll probably prevail against a motion for summary judgment.
If that happens … discovery could be very interesting. It isn’t hard to imagine the kind of supporting evidence that might back these kinds of allegations, and ISTM that the bar is probably something like “substantially true” or “more likely than not true,” rather than the PAC having to have every single detail 100% correct.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t there a court case that (roughly) found that falsehoods in the political arena were allowed?
It seems like the difference is that public figures have to show actual malice in order to prevail in a libel case:
I have to wonder about the wisdom of a defamation lawsuit. That’d be a civil suit, which puts the bar at around 50%, not the “beyond reasonable doubt” of a criminal case. But that nuance is likely to be lost on the public consciousness: If the headlines say “Boebert loses defamation lawsuit”, then the public is likely to interpret that as “allegations proven true in court”.
Which means that a sensible person really doesn’t want to go to court over something like this, unless they’re very confident that they can win, which would be most likely to happen if the allegations were, in fact, false. But of course, what a sensible person would do tells us nothing at all about what Boebert would do.
OTOH it could just be that unlike the case with Cawthorn, where he himself made AND paid for the rope and tied it around his neck, this could be something where there IS a slander case to be argued. Don’t be blinded by burning hatred.
And moreover, something we may be missing is that for this group of voters, the expectation of the politician is to announce she will fight . She “wins” by just saying she will fight. It’s the Trump vision: I don’t care if it’s moot or bullshit I need to be seen fighting.
As someone else mentioned, we had a perfectly provable issue with her campaign reimbursements, but of course someone “needs” to bring forth something extra salacious. Allowing her to take on the role of a victim.
…
BTW the “hypocrite card” IMO doesn’t work against the Right — they believe “do as I say, not as I do” IS a valid way to teach morals.
Right; if she were sensible, then her bringing legal action against this claim would appear to suggest that the claims are false. Since it’s Boebert we’re talking about, that argument doesn’t apply, which means that we can’t judge whether the claims are true or false. On the other hand…
We also can’t draw any such conclusion from a statement that she will sue, without the actual lawsuit. And in fact, a statement that she will sue, followed by no lawsuit, suggests that the claims are more likely to be true, because if they weren’t, she’d actually be fighting them instead of talking about fighting them. Or, again, it might not mean anything, because she’s an idiot, and maybe she can’t figure out the next step of a lawsuit after the complaining-on-Twitter part.
Of course, if this does actually go to court, then both sides will present evidence, and we can then decide based on whatever that evidence is.
WE can’t. OTOH her voters , being the kind who’d vote for her, may think she’s just too tired of winning so much, a-la Trump
Sometimes (see: Trump), the game is as simple as pounding your fists on the table and threatening litigation just long enough for the next local, regional, national, or international story to usurp the news cycle.
Trump’s entire presidency was a Gish gallop. That wasn’t lost on his supporters.
I half expect her to stop denying the abortion allegations and pivot to “I was tricked by liberal lies into killing my babies”.
I think a lot of public figures threaten to sue, but then when they speak to an actual lawyer, they find out that as a public figure the bar is so high for them to prevail that it’s not worthwhile and possibly counterproductive.
It’s remarkable to the extent that the public at large seems to be of the mindset that “if you’re right that the allegations are false then let’s see you sue”, even though it’s been long established and well publicized that this doesn’t work. (The recent Palin trial being one example.)
Really, it’s kind of a conundrum for public figures. If you don’t sue, then people say “if you were saying the truth then you would sue”, but if you sue then you’re very apt to lose based on the “actual malice” standard even if you prove your case as to the facts of the allegations, and the public can then say “see, he/she sued and lost”.
It’s similar to “only guilty people need lawyers.”
At least, that’s true for the moment under Sullivan.
Thomas and Gorsuch have both questioned Sullivan in the recent past; perhaps Boebert (or some lawyer who has her ear) thinks she can put up a challenge to the standard of the current law.
She may yet, if the allegations are true. Either way, I think we’re going to start seeing a lot more public revelations about secret abortions among vocally anti-abortion politicians and their immediate families.
For a long time, “anti-abortion” hypocrites got away with the inconsistency of denouncing abortion as murder in public while giving their own circles a pass for having discreet abortions in private, because they were protected by protocols and principles about patient confidentiality.
But if they’re really going to impose their abortion-is-murder stance on other people legislatively, I think they’re going to face much sharper scrutiny and much less tolerance for their hypocrisy when they assume that that stance doesn’t always have to apply to them.
I’d really like this to be true, but do not for a moment consider it likely. Again, if I had to bet, I think the SCOTUS will say there’s no constitutional protection for abortion, but leave it to the states to govern themselves.
And those of sufficient wealth / influence in Republican/Christian conservative circles will still afford themselves of abortion for themselves/their family in abortion allowing states, while denouncing it to high heavens.
And if they get caught they’ll just continue the ‘fake news’ narrative, or alternately, go with what @Ann_Hedonia suggested, or the classic ‘the devil made me do it’ which they’ve used for getting caught in homosexual relationships, theft from their flock, or any other number of issues.
Even people who don’t believe their hypocrisy for a second will let it pass as long as they’re on the same side as the last few years have shown. And since their news bubble will NEVER bring it up, most of the people that might care will never hear about it.
Boebert’s voters won’t care a whit about this, and she knows it.
And the Reps ragged AOC for being a bartender 