Donald Trump’s Justice Department last year covertly tried to use a grand-jury subpoena to unmask a parody Twitter account that was trolling Rep. Devin Nunes, a request the social media platform pushed back against as a potential violation of the First Amendment, the New York Times reports. Court documents unsealed Monday show how Twitter in March filed a motion to quash the 2020 subpoena and vacate an accompanying gag order prohibiting the company from discussing it publicly, citing concerns that the Trump-aligned congressman “may be using the government to unmask his critics” in violation of the First Amendment—behavior in line with Nunes’ “history of using the legal system to lodge frivolous complaints against online critics for the purpose of learning their identities,” the filing notes. “His efforts to suppress critical speech are as well-publicized as they are unsuccessful.”
The filing states that after receiving the subpoena request to provide identifying details about the user behind the parody account pretending to be his mother, @NunesAlt, Twitter “promptly contacted the Assistant United States Attorney who had issued it” to raise concerns about the basis of the investigation in the context of Nunes’ past legal efforts to silence criticism. While the government responded by telling Twitter the request was part of a criminal investigation into “threatening communication in interstate commerce,” they declined to identify the alleged threat or whether it was directed at the Republican congressman.
All of which served to bolster Twitter’s concerns that “the subpoena may not be supported by a legitimate law enforcement purpose, and that therefore, there cannot be any need — let alone a compelling need — for the government to unmask the user,” a lawyer for the platform wrote in the motion. @NunesAlt echoed that assessment in reaction to Monday’s disclosure.
The Times reports that the subpoena was eventually withdrawn by the DOJ after President Joe Biden took office, marking yet another setback in the Trump ally’s longstanding quest to gain information about the identities of those mocking him on Twitter. The news comes as Nunes and his attorney have separately pursued “many superfluous lawsuits,” aimed at identifying online trolls, the filing notes, including the parody account pretending to be his cow. Of the nine lawsuits Nunes has filed against detractors in the past two years, the Fresno Bee reports that two have been voluntarily withdrawn by the California lawmaker himself and three have been dismissed by judges. The attempted unmasking of the aforementioned “Devin Nunes’ Cow” account was one of four entities sued in Nunes’ first lawsuit, along with Twitter, a Republican strategist, and a different satirical account pretending to be his mom. That case was dealt a blow last summer, when a judge dismissed Twitter as a defendant due to a law that protects social media companies from being held liable for what people post on their platforms—including, but not limited to, a cow calling Nunes “udder-ly worthless” and a “treasonous cowpoke” whose “boots are full of manure.”
Dairy, it seems, is a unifying theme: Nunes in 2019 sued a retired farmer and Democratic groups over accusations of being a “fake farmer”—only to drop the lawsuit shortly after filing it—and, the same year, unsuccessfully tried to sue journalist Ryan Lizza and Esquire for defamation over an article Lizza wrote about the dairy owned by Nunes’ family. Esquire is not the only news organization in Nunes’s sights: he’s also taken CNN, the Fresno Bee, and the Washington Post (twice!) to court.
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