Discussion: Arpaio Sues NYT For Libel Over Column Calling Him 'Truly Sadistic Man'

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21

Mostly Scaife and Olin.

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22

The idea that being a Republican politician is a business relationship with the national party should be inscribed in stone and posted as publicly as possible.

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23

Michelle Cottle has written for the Atlantic, The Daily Beast, and Newsweek, and now she’s on the editorial board of NYT. But she’s nailed it.

Some might consider it ungenerous to celebrate Mr. Arpaio’s electoral failure and continuing slide into irrelevance. But the man has a long and storied history of mistreating people in unfortunate circumstances, so it seems only appropriate to return the favor.

For nearly a quarter-century, Sheriff Joe Arpaio was a disgrace to law enforcement, a sadist masquerading as a public servant. In a just system, we would not see his like again. In the current political climate, it may be enough that Arizona Republicans solidly rejected him

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Technically, she was my step-daughter. I await your apology.

25

You’re just trying to get me to say I’m flummoxed again.

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26

Even if it’s libel, Arpaio would have to demonstrate some damage to his reputation. Otherwise, there can be no cash award. I don’t think he could clear that hurdle.

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Joe better start his GoFundMe page now because he is going to get stuck with some pricey legal bills.

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Arpaio practiced performance sadism and ritual humiliation for over twenty years. Res Ipsa Loquitor.

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That is an excellent question, to which I don’t have a clear answer. Just based on the case names of some of the cases he was involved in back in the '90s to maybe the early '00s, it seemed that he had some clients who you would expect to be paying him to litigate their cases. That does not appear to be so in any of his more recent cases, though maybe some rich Fox News viewer occasionally pays cash to have Larry Klayman file a garbage lawsuit on his behalf. Mostly, Klayman’s m.o. seems to be to ingratiate himself with newsworthy garbage people like Arpaio and Cliven Bundy who don’t have the money to hire real lawyers, or whose real lawyers maybe declined to file garbage lawsuits on their behalf. And when he can’t find willing clients, Klayman frequently files suit on his own behalf, or on behalf of his organization, Freedom Watch. So my best guess is that his income comes from whoever is funding Freedom Watch, maybe supplemented from time to time by wealthy wingnut clients.

It’s noteworthy that one of the many occasions on which Klayman found himself in ethical or sanctionable jeopardy was when he was accused of taking a $25,000 retainer from a criminal defendant in Florida back around 2007, then never doing any work for her. On that occasion, the Florida Bar helped mediate a settlement to pay back some of the money within 90 days, but Larry managed not to meet that deadline. That is not the sort of behavior you would expect from any attorney who has a thriving and lucrative practice. Based on that sort of history, I would speculate that Larry is hustling in the cheapest and shallowest portions of the wingnut fever-swamp.

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30

Perfectly stated.

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@cervantes said it elegantly, but, yeah, “he’s still nuts” is what this suit tells us.

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“Your honor, my client is not sadistic. He is in fact a masochist, as exhibit B, a video from the Oval Office, clearly demonstrates.”

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Calling Arpaio a “man” is a lie.

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34

Seeing what happened this week, it was smarter to hold off or looked at the amount of time that he had left to file.

anyhow

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More than anybody needs to know about this guy.

@txlawyer

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36

Clearly it was the popcorn that led to the 108-100 win over OKC Thunder last night.

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37

I hope his lawyers are getting paid by the hour, and up front. Loser.

Edited to Note that Larry Klayman is his lawyer, so rather I hope he’s on contingency. HA!

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38

“well, seeing how Russ still doesn’t have anybody other than Adams and Schröder to rely on
”

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39

I missed the part where he showed refuting evidence for anything in the article. Even for an initial claim, don’t you at least have to make some kind of a showing that you might have a case?

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Case dismissed.

You made yourself a public figure, Arpaio. You are shit out of luck suing absolutely anyone for libel or defamation.

But on the off-chance it isn’t dismissed, whoo howdy, cannot wait for THAT discovery.