It’s no easy feat to be the most thin-skinned man in American politics these days, especially given that the country is run by a short-fingered vulgarian who compulsively tweets about every real and perceived slight against him. But Devin Nunes has done the impossible and surpassed even Donald Trump in hypersensitivity.

Nunes, a Republican representative from California, filed a $250 million lawsuit on Monday against Twitter and a handful of users who criticized him, accusing them of negligence and defamation. He even claims that the defendants are part of a grand conspiracy to cripple his political career. Who’s leading this dastardly plot? Nunes doesn’t quite say. Maybe it’s the Democratic Party, he suggests. Or unnamed liberal donors. Or even hostile foreign adversaries. Whoever these hostile actors are, they’re not only causing him grievous harm; they’re contributing to “the corruption of American democracy and society.”

What the lawsuit really demonstrates, though, is the stunning vindictiveness of a powerful elected official who would use the legal system to punish his critics. If the lawsuit was intended to vindicate Nunes and his reputation, it has achieved precisely the opposite.



Nunes rose to national fame over the last two years as the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, a perch he used to undermine the Russia investigation and defend Trump. In the complaint, he depicts himself as an honorable public servant who’s been wrongly maligned by his powerful opponents—only one of whom, longtime Republican political operative Liz Mair, is explicitly named. The others are unknown to him: the Twitter users responsible for anonymous parody accounts such as “Devin Nunes’ Mom,” “Devin Nunes’ Cow,” “Fire Devin Nunes,” and “Devin Nunes’ Grapes.”

Nunes obliquely implies that Mair is in cahoots with these accounts’ owners, but offers no proof to support the theory. Either way, like a high school teacher hit from behind with a spitball, he’s determined to find out who’s responsible. “The identity of those behind the Twitter accounts is a matter of great public concern,” Nunes told the court. “Whether the accounts are controlled by wealthy Democrats, the Democratic National Committee, an opposition research firm, such as Fusion GPS, the ‘Russians,’ the ‘Chinese,’ or some other foreign government or non-governmental organization, the corruption of American democracy and society by intentional falsehoods, fraud and defamation must stop.”