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Judge Wants to Know Who’s Bankrolling Nunes Family Farm’s Libel Suit

A federal judge has ordered Rep. Devin Nunes’ family to share how exactly they’re paying to sue a media company after it alleged they employed undocumented migrants on their farm.

A federal judge has ordered Rep. Devin Nunes’ family to share how exactly they’re paying to sue a reporter and a media company after a 2018 story alleged their farm relied on the labor of undocumented immigrants. In a summer hearing, the congressman’s brother said he had “no idea” who was paying for their litigation. In his decision this week, Judge Mark Roberts wrote that such a statement “raises legitimate concern about not only who may be in charge of the lawsuit, but also whether Plaintiffs are still the real parties in interest.”

Roberts is interested in discovering the extent to which Nunes might be involved in his family’s case against journalist Ryan Lizza and Hearst, the parent company of Esquire magazine, which in 2018 published Nustar Farms’ “politically explosive secret.” The suit is being argued by an attorney, Steven Biss, who has worked for Nunes in nearly all of the 10 defamation lawsuits the congressman has filed over the past three years. The Nunes have never denied receiving financial support for their suit, the judge noted in his decision. “These circumstances may not ultimately turn out to be ‘untoward,’” Roberts wrote, “but they are certainly unusual.”