{"id":102013,"date":"2025-01-28T09:02:55","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T17:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/01\/28\/maga-lawyer-loses-case-against-j6-committee-for-tortious-making-me-look-bad\/"},"modified":"2025-01-28T09:02:55","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T17:02:55","slug":"maga-lawyer-loses-case-against-j6-committee-for-tortious-making-me-look-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/01\/28\/maga-lawyer-loses-case-against-j6-committee-for-tortious-making-me-look-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"MAGA Lawyer Loses Case Against J6 Committee For Tortious Making Me Look Bad"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Angry
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If Stefan Passantino wants to be remembered for something other than his disastrous representation<\/a> of Cassidy Hutchinson, he could start by shutting up about it.<\/p>\n

The former Trump ethics lawyer sued<\/a> MSNBC commentator Andrew Weissman for defamation and filed a\u00a0bar complaint<\/a> 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!<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Passantino also sued Congress<\/a> for invasion of privacy and civil conspiracy, because \u2026 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 \u201cMinisoldr\u201d Robinson<\/a>, Mike Flynn<\/a>, Devin Nunes<\/a>, Sidney Powell<\/a>, and even the current president<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The complaint was Binnall\u2019s standard fare: indignant whinging grafted onto a bizarre legal theory. He says that the Committee leaked the transcripts of Hutchinson\u2019s testimony \u2014 given after she\u2019d fired Passantino and replaced him with Jody Hunt, the former head of the DOJ\u2019s Civil Division \u2014 to CNN before releasing them to the general public. In his telling, \u201cThe 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,\u201d resulting in Passantino being fired from Michael Best. And that is a civil conspiracy with CNN, whom he did not sue for \u2026 reasons.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

As flagged<\/a> by Jerry Lambe at Law & Crime, the court\u00a0dismissed<\/a> 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\u2019t countenance libelslander lawsuits against the government. Womp womp.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Passantino attempts to sidestep \u00a7 2680(h)\u2019s libel\/slander exception by arguing that the harm alleged in the Complaint derives not from the Committee\u2019s false statements about him, but from the Committee releasing his \u201cprivate information.\u201d That private information, according to Passantino, consists of privileged \u201cinternal discussions\u201d with Hutchinson that the Committee purportedly leaked to the media. The problem with Passantino\u2019s argument is that if the Committee\u2019s defamatory statements are set aside, the Complaint fails to establish a connection between the \u201cinternal discussions\u201d about Passantino\u2019s \u201cprivate information\u201d and the harm alleged in the Complaint. And without that connection, there is no valid FTCA claim.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The court was similarly flummoxed as to what possible \u201cprivate fact\u201d could have been disclosed by quoting the actual words of Passantino\u2019s former client.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Court is hard pressed to see how an attorney\u2019s advice to his client not to lie to Congress is a \u2018private fact\u2019 in any sense,\u201d she wrote. \u201cBut yet again, Passantino leaves the United States and this Court guessing as to what private information was exchanged during those conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n

And if there\u2019s no invasion of privacy claim, the conspiracy claim falls, too \u2014 you can hardly conspire to commit a non-crime.<\/p>\n

Which means that Binnall can chalk up another fabulous victory!<\/p>\n

Passantino v. US<\/a> [Docket via Court Listener]<\/p>\n

\n

Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0substack<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The post MAGA Lawyer Loses Case Against J6 Committee For Tortious Making Me Look Bad<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Angry
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If Stefan Passantino wants to be remembered for something other than his disastrous representation<\/a> of Cassidy Hutchinson, he could start by shutting up about it.<\/p>\n

The former Trump ethics lawyer sued<\/a> MSNBC commentator Andrew Weissman for defamation and filed a\u00a0bar complaint<\/a> 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!<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Passantino also sued Congress<\/a> for invasion of privacy and civil conspiracy, because \u2026 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 \u201cMinisoldr\u201d Robinson<\/a>, Mike Flynn<\/a>, Devin Nunes<\/a>, Sidney Powell<\/a>, and even the current president<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The complaint was Binnall\u2019s standard fare: indignant whinging grafted onto a bizarre legal theory. He says that the Committee leaked the transcripts of Hutchinson\u2019s testimony \u2014 given after she\u2019d fired Passantino and replaced him with Jody Hunt, the former head of the DOJ\u2019s Civil Division \u2014 to CNN before releasing them to the general public. In his telling, \u201cThe 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,\u201d resulting in Passantino being fired from Michael Best. And that is a civil conspiracy with CNN, whom he did not sue for \u2026 reasons.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

As flagged<\/a> by Jerry Lambe at Law & Crime, the court\u00a0dismissed<\/a> 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\u2019t countenance libelslander lawsuits against the government. Womp womp.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Passantino attempts to sidestep \u00a7 2680(h)\u2019s libel\/slander exception by arguing that the harm alleged in the Complaint derives not from the Committee\u2019s false statements about him, but from the Committee releasing his \u201cprivate information.\u201d That private information, according to Passantino, consists of privileged \u201cinternal discussions\u201d with Hutchinson that the Committee purportedly leaked to the media. The problem with Passantino\u2019s argument is that if the Committee\u2019s defamatory statements are set aside, the Complaint fails to establish a connection between the \u201cinternal discussions\u201d about Passantino\u2019s \u201cprivate information\u201d and the harm alleged in the Complaint. And without that connection, there is no valid FTCA claim.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The court was similarly flummoxed as to what possible \u201cprivate fact\u201d could have been disclosed by quoting the actual words of Passantino\u2019s former client.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Court is hard pressed to see how an attorney\u2019s advice to his client not to lie to Congress is a \u2018private fact\u2019 in any sense,\u201d she wrote. \u201cBut yet again, Passantino leaves the United States and this Court guessing as to what private information was exchanged during those conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n

And if there\u2019s no invasion of privacy claim, the conspiracy claim falls, too \u2014 you can hardly conspire to commit a non-crime.<\/p>\n

Which means that Binnall can chalk up another fabulous victory!<\/p>\n

Passantino v. US<\/a> [Docket via Court Listener]<\/p>\n

\n

Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0substack<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u00a0bar complaint against former Rep. Liz Cheney for supposedly violating bar rules by communicating with Hutchinson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":101922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/GettyImages-489813526-RJf317-scaled.jpeg?fit=2560%2C2498&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}