November 4, 2020

Devin Nunes, Who Sued a Twitter Cow, Keeps His Seat

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.)Yara Nardi/AP

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President Donald Trump’s Mini-Me in California’s Central Valley, Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, will be going back to Congress for a 10th term in January. Voters in California’s 22nd District reelected Nunes over Democratic challenger Phil Arballo, according to the Associated Press and the Modesto Bee.

Over the past four years, Nunes has built a reputation as a bombastic sycophant of the president, using his position as chair of the House Intelligence Committee in 2017 and 2018 to lead the Republican response to investigations into Trump’s ties to Russia. The “Nunes Memo” released in 2018 questioned the justification for FBI surveillance of a former Trump campaign advisor, angering Democrats who claimed it was released solely to undermine Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. 

That year, Nunes faced his first serious challenge from Andrew Janz, who took aim at Nunes’ lack of attention to voters in his district. Nunes defeated Janz’ bid by 5 points largely by excoriating the media, including the Fresno Bee, which had supported him in every previous reelection campaign but turned against him over his Trump-Russia antics. Since his 2018 win, Nunes has filed at least seven lawsuits against media organizations, politicos, and online critics including anonymous parody Twitter accounts known as Devin Nunes’ Cow and Devin Nunes’ Mom. None of his suits have been particularly successful. 

This year, Arballo made many of the same arguments as Janz while emphasizing issues like health care access and COVID-19. Meanwhile, Nunes doubled down on Trumpism, demonizing Arballo and other Democrats as socialists, claiming that conservatives are under attack from the so-called Deep State, and pushing rumors about Hunter Biden. He remained one of the Republican Party’s strongest House fundraisers, pulling in over $10 million for his reelection, including $200,000 raised in the two days after he announced a lawsuit against the Washington Post in March. 

Like Janz, Arballo didn’t do badly; he got nearly 47 percent of the vote. But Nunes isn’t going anywhere soon. And neither, it seems, are the trolls who made him have a cow:

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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