‘Devin Nunes cow’ Twitter account gains 150,000 followers as US Republican’s lawsuit backfires
- Parody account, which purports to be owned by unhappy cow on Nunes’ farm, called him ‘treasonous cowpoke’ and ‘udder-ly worthless’
- Lawmaker sued for US$250,000 in damages, complaining he was defamed in hundreds of tweets by various users
A parody Twitter account purporting to be owned by an unhappy cow living on one of US lawmaker Devin Nunes’ Iowa farms attacked the California Republican as a “treasonous cowpoke” and “udder-ly worthless” during the 2018 campaign.
Now Nunes wants US$250 million in damages from Twitter for failing to police the accounts @DevinCow as well as another parody, @DevinNunesMom, and a political activist named Liz Mair.
In a lawsuit filed in Virginia on Tuesday, Nunes complained that all three defamed him in hundreds of tweets over several months last year. It also seeks US$350,000 in punitive damages.
Nunes, a close ally of US President Donald Trump, says in his complaint that he endured what “no human being should ever have to bear and suffer in their whole life.” He said it caused him to win re-election last November by a narrower margin than in the past and distracted him from running the House investigation into Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election.
Among other things, Nunes, from Tulare, cited a variety of tweets that used crude humour to accuse him of criminal behaviour, including soliciting prostitutes.