Judge Rules MSNBC Pundit Potentially Defamed Trump Attorney

A federal court in Washington, D.C., ruled an online claim made by a legal analyst at MSNBC against a former White House attorney in the Trump administration is potentially defamatory.

In September, U.S. District Court Judge Loren AliKhan denied a motion from MSNBC legal analyst and attorney Andrew Weissmann to dismiss a complaint filed by Stefan Passantino, who represented former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson before she became the Jan. 6 Committee’s star witness.

Passantino had previously served as head deputy ethics counsel in the Trump White House and was Hutchinson’s attorney when she was initially questioned by the House Democrats’ Soviet-style inquisition run by then-Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney. Hutchinson fired Passantino, who was being paid by the Save America PAC, when she decided to change her testimony before the House committee and make a series of outlandish claims immediately discredited by her own named sources.

Passantino sued Weissmann last year after the former deputy to Special Counsel Robert Mueller claimed the Trump-world attorney “coached her to lie.”

“This is an insidious lie,” Passantino’s lawsuit reads. “Ms. Hutchinson even testified, under penalty of law: ‘I want to make this clear to you: Stefan [Passantino] never told me to lie. … He told me not to lie.” (Read more from “Judge Rules MSNBC Pundit Potentially Defamed Trump Attorney” HERE)

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