Wingnut Social Media Dickhead Tim Pool Sues Kamala Harris For All The Libelslander!
Wingnut Social Media Dickhead Tim Pool Sues Kamala Harris For All The Libelslander!
Yes, the same Tim Pool who was paid by Russia to help Trump.
Tim Pool is a beanie-wearing rightwing podcaster whose name you may have heard recently because he’s one of the stupid rightwing tools who got big payoffs from Russia to make videos that generally supported Russian propaganda aims. Even without being a Russian asset blameless victim, he makes a comfortable living stirring rightwing shit and being a fulltime troll.
Also, don’t make fun of how silly his hat looks, or you will be committing a toque quoque fallacy.
Anyhow, Mr. Pool announced this week that he’s suing the Kamala Harris campaign for besmirch statements made on the “Kamala HQ” twitter account in August, when the account reposted a video excerpt in which Pool called for a whole bunch of Democrats to be arrested once Donald Trump is president again, and the suddenly ubiquitous Laura Loomer chimed in, calling for them to get the death penalty, because they all did treason. Here’s a screenshot! No, you cannot make the video play; we just told you it’s a screenshot.
And here’s the video, which is worth at least a brief listen because Pool talks like a sped-up audio recording. This one, you can play!
POOL: Should Democrats be in jail? No question. When Donald Trump gets elected, should he start locking them up? No question. Should there be lists of Democrats that need to go to jail, one hundred percent. And the reason for that is they committed crimes.
You get the idea. He goes on to explain that the entire Justice Department must act against Democrats for all their criming, to teach ‘em a lesson and show their crimes to the world!
Loomer jumped in: “Not just jail, they should get the death penalty! We used to have a punishment for treason in this country!” Then she very pointedly did not add, “Would you believe that in just a few weeks everyone will think I am extramaritally boinking Donald Trump, that gross old turd, er, savior of our nation?”
Pool claims in the lawsuit that the Kamala HQ tweet defames him and did millions of dollars in damage to his two-bit reputation, both by smearing him as a “Trump operative,” but also by saying he supports executing Trump’s enemies, even though he is morally opposed to capital punishment and only talked — rapidly, like a chipmunk — of jailing Democrats. In fact, Pool suggested on his podcast Tuesday, the tweet had even put his life at risk, because you know how those murderous Kamala supporters are!
Pool claims that the tweet has done enormous damage to him, given potential guests an excuse to not appear on his lame podcast, and that “The reputational harm the Harris Campaign inflicted on Mr. Pool will take millions of dollars to undo,” so make with the remuneration please, so that he can be made whole.
As Wonkette’s own Liz Dye and Not Wonkette’s Andrew Torrez explain at Law and Chaos, there are a few possible problems with Pool’s lawsuit, starting with the fact that he’s just plain suing the wrong Harris campaign entity; the one which is named in the suit, “is not generally responsible for sending out tweets — in fact, it would be illegal for it to do so.” So OK, that’ll need an amended complaint, to start with. How embarrassing!
The other big problem with the suit is that it’s missing a key component of a defamation case:
And then there’s the minor problem that Pool doesn’t appear to have alleged that the tweet itself was defamatory, much less that it satisfies the actual malice standard for a public figure who is “a social media content creator with millions of followers across numerous platforms.”
Pool asserts that even though he’s a big supporter of Trump, he’s definitely not a “Trump operative” — not that the distinction, if any, matters, because
the tweet does not name him, and it could certainly be referring to Loomer, who has been flying around on Trump’s plane and spewing campaign talking points. And, not for nothing, but Looomer did advocate for the death penalty for Trump’s enemies.
And then there’s that “execute those who don’t support Trump” stuff that supposedly defamed Pool. The suit devotes a lot of space to proving Pool personally opposes the death penalty, but there’s still Loomer’s enthusiastic call for lots of executions, which got the podcast shut down on YouTube. What’s more, after that hammer dropped,
Tim and the tools picked back up on Rumble where Pool told his viewers, “I actually don’t take any issue at all with what Laura said. I actually completely agree that people who commit treason should get the death penalty.”
Oh, that could be a problem for calling the tweet defamatory, huh.
And finally, as Liz explains, perhaps with a bit of extra patience because look who she’s talking about,
you really can’t just yaddayaddayadda over the actual malice requirement by mumbling, “The Harris Campaign exhibited actual malice by claiming that Mr. Pool supported lawlessness and extrajudicial killings when he made no such claim and despite the campaign's apparent research into Mr. Pool and his views.” No, not even if you throw in a conclusory statement that the campaign’s conduct “was at all times carried out in bad faith, vexatiously, wantonly, and/or for oppressive reasons.”
We’ll definitely keep you updated on the progress of this very serious and no doubt precedent-setting case, because didn’t you know that Tim Pool isn’t just a Russian stooge (knowingly or, as he insists, cluelessly), he is in fact a major voice in politics, with millions of followers who will not stand for his reputation being ... oh, whatever it was he’s mad about.
[Law and Chaos / Pool v. Harris for President complaint]
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Non ego petasum
Tim Pool is the guy with the fifth grade education, right?