CHARLESTON – A federal judge has refused to dismiss defamation claims against nearly two dozen media outlets and others from a case in which Don Blankenship alleges they called him felon.
U.S. District Judge John Copenhaver filed a memorandum opinion and order March 31 granting dismissal of several defendants. Most of those dismissed are individual journalists, but some larger media companies such as the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Times, The Daily Beast and Brietbart News. Some of the notable individuals dismissed include Andrew Napolitano of Fox News and Chris Hayes of MSNBC.
After all of the dismissals, there are 20 defendants left in the case. They include ABC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, the Charleston Gazette-Mail and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. While the individuals have been dismissed from this lawsuit, they still can be sued individually in their states of residence.
Blankenship said that while he’s pleased with the ruling, he hopes Americans “begin to recognize that our government and our media have become partners in controlling our elections and destroying our First Amendment rights to free speech.”
“As the government often does, they destroy our rights while falsely claiming to be taking actions to protect those rights,” Blankenship said. “The Supreme Court ruling in the case New York Times vs Sullivan is a prime example of that fact.
“The media and the National Republican Senatorial Committee must be taught that defaming candidates for public office, particularly during an election campaign and with the stated purpose of stopping a candidate from winning an election, is the epitome of both chilling free speech and of election sabotage.
“It is particularly frightening that this onslaught of defamation occurred following U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and several more U.S. senators expressing their intention to ‘stop’ me from winning a federal election. The media and Republican operatives use of outright lies to sabotage federal elections must not be allowed to continue.”
Blankenship’s lead attorney Eric Early said he is confident about the case.
“In recent years many high-profile defamation suits by public figures against major media companies have been dismissed by courts at the Motion to Dismiss stage,” Early said. “This ruling reflects the strength of Don’s claims.”
In his March 31 80-page filing, Copenhaver said all of the defendants’ statements identifying Blankenship as a felon “are materially false.”
“Based on the applicable law, all challenged statements in this case that identify the plaintiff as a ‘felon,’ ‘convicted felon’ or ‘felonious’ are capable of defamatory meaning because they reflect shame and disgrace on the plaintiff,” Copenhaver wrote. “The statements may also be considered defamatory per se because they impute a felony conviction.”
Blankenship, the former Massey Energy CEO, originally filed the $12 billion lawsuit in Mingo Circuit Court claiming national media outlets and leading Republicans intended to defame him in his 2018 U.S. Senate bid.
“The lawsuit is a defamation claim,” Blankenship said then. “The suit makes clear that the purpose of Fox and other major media outlets defaming me was to impact the outcome of the May 2018 Republican Primary Election in West Virginia.
“The lawsuit also makes clear that the purposeful and illegal defamation was carried out as a result of collusion with and encouragement from Republican government officials.
The complaint alleges the defamation was planned by Republican U.S. Senators, members of the NRSC and “perhaps others” before the May 2018 primary. The complaint calls it a case of “Weaponized Defamation.”
“The plan apparently included the development of a ‘menu list of items to stop Blankenship’ from winning the West Virginia Republican Primary,” Blankenship said. “We allege that meetings were initiated by Republican Leaders over concern that I would win the election for the Republican nomination for the West Virginia U.S. Senate Seat.”
He says the defendants repeatedly referred to him as a convicted felon, noting that Napolitano, a former New Jersey Supreme Court Justice, said Blankenship had been convicted of manslaughter on Fox News.
Blankenship later filed two similar lawsuits, one against Donald Trump Jr. and one against The Boston Globe.
In 2015, Blankenship was convicted of one federal misdemeanor charge of conspiring to willfully violate mine safety standards. The federal jury found him not guilty of securities fraud and not guilty of making false statements after the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in Raleigh County that left 29 miners dead in 2010. Both of those charges were felonies.
“The Obama Department of Justice cheated in every way imaginable to convict me of false felony charges and they failed to do so, Blankenship said. “Major media outlets throughout the United States, including defendants in this case, reported at the time that I was convicted of only a misdemeanor. Some also later reported that I was sent to prison for a misdemeanor.
“Additionally, I made clear in the nationally televised Fox debate that I was sent to prison for a misdemeanor. In other words, we know that the defendants knew and even reported that I was convicted of a misdemeanor and not a felony at the time of the conviction.”
Blankenship noted that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and other senators expressed to the media that they did not want him to win the election.
“In reaction to my possibly winning the election, a Political Action Committee apparently controlled by Senator Mitch McConnell launched a $1.3 million negative and false ad campaign against me,” Blankenship said. “However, in the words of the media, I continued to ‘surge’ toward the lead in the race. In fact, I took the lead in most polls including polls taken by my opponents.
He claims the GOP then went to the media for help. That includes Napolitano, who had heard cases by West Virginia Attorney General and New Jersey native (and fellow Republican Senate candidate) Patrick Morrisey. Morrisey eventually won the Republican nomination, but lost to incumbent Democrat Joe Manchin in the 2018 general election.
“My campaign manager immediately informed Napolitano that I had never been convicted of a felony nor had I ever gone to prison for manslaughter,” Blankenship said. “Both Fox and Napolitano failed to retract or correct the statement prior to the election.
“Others on Fox including Neil Cavuto and Stephanie Hamill also told their viewing audiences that I was a felon in the days leading up to the election. Commentators on CNN and MSNBC, among others, and journalists working for the Washington Post and others, made the same defamatory comments.”
Blankenship blames government officials for controlling the national media.
“We have documented not only dozens of media statements saying ‘Blankenship is a felon’ in the days leading up to the election, but also afterward when I was attempting to gain access to the fall ballot as a Constitution Party candidate,” he said. “It is obvious that calling me a felon at these times had as its purpose preventing me from becoming a United States Senator and depriving West Virginia voters of a fair election.
“The purpose is made even more clear by the fact that we have yet to find a single time that the national media called me a felon prior to and just before the election. The felon statements were all made after United States government officials began to express concern that I would win the race.”
Blankenship also called out “mega size American corporations” for their role in media.
“As just one example, AT&T which most Americans think of as being in the telephone business, owns CNN,” Blankenship said. “If these companies are allowed to own television networks whose reporters purposefully slander candidates for the United States Senate, they need to be held responsible for corrupting federal elections.
“Fox, the Washington Post and their individual employees are very influential in the public arena and they must be severely punished when they cause American elections to be corrupted. Particularly, when they are encouraged by United States government officials to do so.”
Blankenship also said he thinks the public and the U.S. Department of Justice should ask more questions about the 2018 primary.
“Matters the DOJ should at least consider investigating include among others whether political meetings were illegally held in U.S. government buildings,” he said. “They should also investigate whether the delay in invalidating my clearly corrupt misdemeanor conviction was related to Republican efforts to ‘stop Blankenship’ from becoming a U.S. Senator.
“Perhaps the most ominous thing needing investigation is why my efforts to invalidate my misdemeanor conviction were stalled just before the election. Then, why shortly after the election my efforts to get the conviction invalidated were delayed again and again as the case was moved to Mitch McConnell’s home state of Kentucky. Later, it was moved to the Department of Justice office in Ohio. As of now it has been on the desk of a federal magistrate judge for three and a half months.”
Blankenship also say there is “much more” to the story that he isn’t ready to discuss.
“You can bet that the defendants in this case will fight hard to defend their actions and will deny the truth,” he said. “But this lawsuit raises very serious issues. Collusion among government officials and the national media to corrupt a federal election is as serious as Russian collusion to do the same.
In my opinion, such matters of government dishonesty represent the single biggest risk to our county’s survival.”
Blankenship seeks general and special damages for defamation, punitive damages, a permanent injunction against the defendants prohibiting republication of the defamatory statements and requiring removal of the statements from public access, court costs, attorney fees and other relief. He seeks $2 billion in compensatory damages and $10 billion in punitive damages.
Blankenship is being represented by Jeffrey S. Simpkins of Simpkins Law in Williamson as well as Early, Jeremy Gray and Kevin Sinclair of Early Sullivan Wright Gizer & McRae in Los Angeles.
Blankenship is seeking the Constitution Party’s nomination for president. In his campaign, he promises to declare a war on government corruption if he’s elected.
He also said he will be releasing a book soon titled “Obama’s Deadliest Coverup.” The book uses government documents, government prosecution witness trial testimony and forensic evidence to expose what he calls the Obama-Biden Administration’s cover-up of what caused the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion in 2010.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia case number 2:19-cv-00236