A U.S. congressman is being sued for allegedly defaming a former associate of the Bidens who claims to have personally met with President Joe Biden. The lawsuit was filed on April 22.
Tony Bobulinski is suing Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) over his claims that Mr. Bobulinski, a military veteran, is a Russian or Chinese spy, after Mr. Raskin ignored demands to retract these claims.
Mr. Bobulinski worked for years with President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and the president’s brother, James Biden. He has told the FBI and, more recently, members of Congress that he met with President Biden, that Hunter Biden would seek his father’s approval and advice on business deals, and that messages between himself and others indicate that President Biden, when vice president, was involved in the family’s business dealings.
“Joe Biden was more than a participant in and beneficiary of his family’s business; he was an active, aware enabler who met with business associates such as myself to further the business, despite being buffered by a complex scheme to maintain plausible deniability,” Mr. Bobulinski testified in March.
Mr. Raskin soon after appeared on MSNBC and said that Mr. Bobulinski and other witnesses that have come forward during the U.S. House of Representatives impeachment inquiry against President Biden are either a Chinese spy or Russian spy.
“And none of them has laid a glove on Joe Biden because he hasn’t done anything wrong,” Mr. Raskin said, adding later that “the only crimes we’ve identified are by their own witnesses.”
Mr. Raskin also posted a statement on social media platform X in which he called Mr. Bobulinski a “political pawn” of former President Donald Trump and said Mr. Bobulinski had been “unable to support his claims against President Biden with any evidence.”
Mr. Raskin has also accused Mr. Bobulinski of collaborating with President Trump’s campaign.
Mr. Bobulinski has paid for his own legal fees and is not affiliated with President Trump’s campaign, according to the filing. It also says he has never lied about his experience with the Biden family and has provided evidence, including emails and other messages, backing his statements.
Mr. Raskin “deliberately and maliciously made these statements, outside the scope of his employment, in an attempt to discredit Mr. Bobulinski’s testimony and to besmirch Mr. Bobulinski’s character,” the suit states. “It was a mistake for defendant to believe he was cloaked with immunity for his defamatory statements.”
A demand to retract the statements was ignored, according to the filing.
A spokesman for Mr. Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, did not respond to a request for comment.
The suit seeks $20 million in damages.
Fox has said that Ms. Tarlov appropriately issued an update in which she said she had no evidence that payments from a super political action committee for President Trump to a law firm representing Mr. Bobulinski were connected with Mr. Bobulinski’s legal fees; however, the lawsuit claims that this update was insufficient.
Ms. Tarlov “failed to retract and apologize,” it states, noting that she described the update as a clarification and not a retraction.
Mr. Goldman, meanwhile, was sued after claiming that Mr. Bobulinski’s testimony was “Russian disinformation” and that Mr. Bobulinski was a “Trump campaign plant.” Mr. Goldman does not appear to have responded to the filing.
An earlier lawsuit says that Cassidy Hutchinson, who worked for White House’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, during the Trump administration, lied about Mr. Bobulinski in her book when she alleges he wore a ski mask while meeting with Mr. Meadows.
Ms. Hutchinson, according to the court docket, has not yet responded to the suit.
