If Stefan Passantino wants to be remembered for something other than his disastrous representation of Cassidy Hutchinson, he could start by shutting up about it.
The former Trump ethics lawyer sued MSNBC commentator Andrew Weissman for defamation and filed a bar complaint against former Rep. Liz Cheney for supposedly violating bar rules by communicating with Hutchinson when she was represented by counsel during the January 6 Committee investigations. This would be a slam dunk if Cheney had been acting as a prosecutor or opposing counsel, and if a congressional investigation were actual litigation. (Nope!)
Passantino also sued Congress for invasion of privacy and civil conspiracy, because … LOL WTF? It makes a (very) little more sense when you check the docket and realize that Passantino is represented by Jesse Binnall, the MAGAworld lawyer hired for pointless windmill tilts on behalf of such luminaries as former North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark “Minisoldr” Robinson, Mike Flynn, Devin Nunes, Sidney Powell, and even the current president.
The complaint was Binnall’s standard fare: indignant whinging grafted onto a bizarre legal theory. He says that the Committee leaked the transcripts of Hutchinson’s testimony — given after she’d fired Passantino and replaced him with Jody Hunt, the former head of the DOJ’s Civil Division — to CNN before releasing them to the general public. In his telling, “The Committee deliberately leaked information to news media, immediately before it would have quietly become public, in order to bring attention to private facts and, in doing so, damage Mr. Passantino,” resulting in Passantino being fired from Michael Best. And that is a civil conspiracy with CNN, whom he did not sue for … reasons.
Why he thinks the transcript would have garnered no public attention, or why he might have an interest in the compelled testimony of his former client, is left as an exercise for the reader. The exercise for Judge Eleanor Ross of the Northern District of Georgia was to determine what to do with this dumb turkey of a case. And the answer was to yeet it into the sun.
As flagged by Jerry Lambe at Law & Crime, the court dismissed the complaint last week for failing to satisfy one of the exceptions to sovereign immunity that would have gotten around the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). Because, while styling this public hissy fit as a conspiracy and invasion of privacy claim, everything that Passantino and Binnall complained about was damage from publication. And the FTCA doesn’t countenance libelslander lawsuits against the government. Womp womp.
Passantino attempts to sidestep § 2680(h)’s libel/slander exception by arguing that the harm alleged in the Complaint derives not from the Committee’s false statements about him, but from the Committee releasing his “private information.” That private information, according to Passantino, consists of privileged “internal discussions” with Hutchinson that the Committee purportedly leaked to the media. The problem with Passantino’s argument is that if the Committee’s defamatory statements are set aside, the Complaint fails to establish a connection between the “internal discussions” about Passantino’s “private information” and the harm alleged in the Complaint. And without that connection, there is no valid FTCA claim.
The court was similarly flummoxed as to what possible “private fact” could have been disclosed by quoting the actual words of Passantino’s former client.
“The Court is hard pressed to see how an attorney’s advice to his client not to lie to Congress is a ‘private fact’ in any sense,” she wrote. “But yet again, Passantino leaves the United States and this Court guessing as to what private information was exchanged during those conversations.”
And if there’s no invasion of privacy claim, the conspiracy claim falls, too — you can hardly conspire to commit a non-crime.
Which means that Binnall can chalk up another fabulous victory!
Passantino v. US [Docket via Court Listener]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.
The post MAGA Lawyer Loses Case Against J6 Committee For Tortious Making Me Look Bad appeared first on Above the Law.
If Stefan Passantino wants to be remembered for something other than his disastrous representation of Cassidy Hutchinson, he could start by shutting up about it.
The former Trump ethics lawyer sued MSNBC commentator Andrew Weissman for defamation and filed a bar complaint against former Rep. Liz Cheney for supposedly violating bar rules by communicating with Hutchinson when she was represented by counsel during the January 6 Committee investigations. This would be a slam dunk if Cheney had been acting as a prosecutor or opposing counsel, and if a congressional investigation were actual litigation. (Nope!)
Passantino also sued Congress for invasion of privacy and civil conspiracy, because … LOL WTF? It makes a (very) little more sense when you check the docket and realize that Passantino is represented by Jesse Binnall, the MAGAworld lawyer hired for pointless windmill tilts on behalf of such luminaries as former North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark “Minisoldr” Robinson, Mike Flynn, Devin Nunes, Sidney Powell, and even the current president.
The complaint was Binnall’s standard fare: indignant whinging grafted onto a bizarre legal theory. He says that the Committee leaked the transcripts of Hutchinson’s testimony — given after she’d fired Passantino and replaced him with Jody Hunt, the former head of the DOJ’s Civil Division — to CNN before releasing them to the general public. In his telling, “The Committee deliberately leaked information to news media, immediately before it would have quietly become public, in order to bring attention to private facts and, in doing so, damage Mr. Passantino,” resulting in Passantino being fired from Michael Best. And that is a civil conspiracy with CNN, whom he did not sue for … reasons.
Why he thinks the transcript would have garnered no public attention, or why he might have an interest in the compelled testimony of his former client, is left as an exercise for the reader. The exercise for Judge Eleanor Ross of the Northern District of Georgia was to determine what to do with this dumb turkey of a case. And the answer was to yeet it into the sun.
As flagged by Jerry Lambe at Law & Crime, the court dismissed the complaint last week for failing to satisfy one of the exceptions to sovereign immunity that would have gotten around the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). Because, while styling this public hissy fit as a conspiracy and invasion of privacy claim, everything that Passantino and Binnall complained about was damage from publication. And the FTCA doesn’t countenance libelslander lawsuits against the government. Womp womp.
Passantino attempts to sidestep § 2680(h)’s libel/slander exception by arguing that the harm alleged in the Complaint derives not from the Committee’s false statements about him, but from the Committee releasing his “private information.” That private information, according to Passantino, consists of privileged “internal discussions” with Hutchinson that the Committee purportedly leaked to the media. The problem with Passantino’s argument is that if the Committee’s defamatory statements are set aside, the Complaint fails to establish a connection between the “internal discussions” about Passantino’s “private information” and the harm alleged in the Complaint. And without that connection, there is no valid FTCA claim.
The court was similarly flummoxed as to what possible “private fact” could have been disclosed by quoting the actual words of Passantino’s former client.
“The Court is hard pressed to see how an attorney’s advice to his client not to lie to Congress is a ‘private fact’ in any sense,” she wrote. “But yet again, Passantino leaves the United States and this Court guessing as to what private information was exchanged during those conversations.”
And if there’s no invasion of privacy claim, the conspiracy claim falls, too — you can hardly conspire to commit a non-crime.
Which means that Binnall can chalk up another fabulous victory!
Passantino v. US [Docket via Court Listener]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.
