Wisconsin Senate candidate Eric Hovde has filed a lawsuit against several local television stations for running an ad from a Democratic political action committee. He’s sued all of them except one, the Fox outlet.
These claims are outrageous! They need to run ads from the skeletons they find in my closet during discovery!
So IANAL, but doesn’t he have to prove the negative, that those claims aren’t true (i.e. that he doesn’t have money stashed in tax havens around the world)? Presumably by disclosing all of his financial information to the defense…
I don’t think he thought his plan all the way through.
Also, the parent company of one of the stations he’s suing, Sinclair. Good luck with that buddy.
As a public figure he would need to prove actual malice to win his defamation suit.
He’s not a fucking public figure. He’s a private citizen running for a public office for the first time.
… and by putting himself in contention for public office he has elevated his position in society to require actual malice for purposes of a defamation legal suit. The bar would be lower if he was not running for public office.