https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200228/00191243998/steven-biss-loses-another-wacky-slapp-suit-judge-scolds-does-not-sanction-him.shtml

Steven Biss has lost again. A week after losing one of his many, many lawsuits representing Congressman Devin Nunes, and also facing possible sanctions in another case, a judge has dismissed yet another one of his SLAPP suits. Once again, as is often the case with Biss, the lawsuit was nonsense, included aspects that were much more performative than legally sound, and was somehow tied to various conspiracy theories and right wing wackiness. As we highlighted last week, it's noteworthy how many of Biss's clients seem to have connections to one another, and this case is no different.

This case was filed last year by a Russian-born academic, Svetlana Lokhova, suing Cambridge academic Stefan Halper and a variety of media properties and journalists, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and MSNBC. At issue were effectively follow ups on a flurry of stories in early 2017 (that date becomes important in a moment), soon after Michael Flynn was forced to resign as Donald Trump's first National Security Advisor, under a cloud of suspicion on a variety of fronts. A variety of media organizations reported that US intelligence officials "had concerns" about Flynn and some possible connections to Russia, including a dinner he had with a group of people at Cambridge, which included (among others) Lokhova. Lokhova seems to blame Halper for these stories -- and thus sued him and some of the media outlets that reported them.