Photo: Howard Fischer /Capitol Media Service
By Howard Fischer Capitol Media Service
The attorney for a Yuma lawmaker issued a warning Monday to Rep. Mark Finchem and former Rep. Anthony Kern: Withdraw your “utterly meritless” and “obviously baseless” lawsuit or be forced to surrender everything you have showing your role in the Capitol riots.
In a letter to the attorneys for the pair, David Bodney said the litigation against Democratic Rep. Charlene Fernandez fails on multiple levels. It starts with the fact Finchem and Kern are public figures, meaning the only way to maintain a lawsuit is to provide that anything she said in a letter about them to the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice was knowingly false or done with conscious disregard for the truth.
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Bodney said Finchem and Kern can’t overcome that legal burden in the lawsuit he filed against her — and only her — alleging she libeled him in asking federal agencies to investigate his activities before and during the U.S. Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6.