Independent journalist Matt Taibbi filed a $10 million libel lawsuit against a Democratic congresswoman on Thursday for allegedly falsely accusing him of sexual harassment and amplifying her claim on her social media accounts.
Taibbi sued Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D., Calif.) in New Jersey federal court for calling him a “serial sexual harasser” during a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing Tuesday about online censorship.
“These statements are demonstrably false and were made with actual malice—either with knowledge of their falsity or with reckless disregard for their truth,” Taibbi’s lawsuit reads.
“The allegations echo prior false claims that have been the subject of legal action and multiple public corrections, of which Defendant was undoubtedly aware, evidencing her actual malice.”
Kamlager-Dove criticized Republicans at the start of the hearing for “elevating a serial sexual harrasser as their star witness.” Her statements at the hearing are protected by the Speech and Debate Clause of the Constitution, but Taibbi’s lawsuit argues that her online amplification of those statements is not, because it falls outside her legislative duties.
Kamlager-Dove posted a transcript of her remarks on her congressional website and amplified videos of her statement on X and Bluesky, a liberal-dominated social media platform.
“After this, Republicans gave Matt Taibbi time to defend himself. It’s telling that he didn’t,” she said on X and Bluesky.
National Review has reached out to Kamlager-Dove’s office for comment.
Taibbi has not been accused of or charged with sexual harassment by any woman. The articles that the congresswoman appears to be referring to describe a satirical passage in a book Taibbi co-authored about writing a Moscow nightlife guide in 1990s Russia.
The women referenced in the passage have both been interviewed and confirmed that Taibbi never sexually harassed them. Several news outlets have issued updates to articles referring to the passage to clarify its satirical nature and remove inaccurate statements about Taibbi.
“Defendant either knew the statements were false or acted with reckless disregard for their truth, ignoring prior legal action and public corrections debunking these allegations—corrections of which she was undoubtedly aware—and republishing the defamation on X, Bluesky and her website, outside the scope of her legislative duties, with intent to harm Plaintiff’s reputation,” the lawsuit asserts.
Taibbi publishes Racket News on Substack and is best known for his reporting on the “Twitter Files,” a series of stories about internal Twitter documents showing how the platform systematically censored conservative viewpoints and suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
Billionaire Elon Musk distributed the files to Taibbi and other independent journalists after purchasing the website with the goal of restoring free speech to it. Musk has since rebranded it X and instituted numerous changes to the platform to encourage free speech and keep users on the site.
Before that, Taibbi was a longtime political journalist at Rolling Stone, known for his investigative reporting and left-wing perspective. Taibbi has been deeply critical of the U.S. national security state and the false claims of collusion between President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.
Taibbi continues to cover online censorship and the federal government’s role in pressuring platforms to suppress speech. He has reported extensively on the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, the subject of the congressional hearing in question. The State Department recently shuttered the GEC after congressional lawmakers refused to fund it and restructured it into a “hub” for countering foreign interference.
At the hearing, Taibbi called the GEC a “truth squad” and argued that it worked to suppress leftist social media accounts as well as conservative news organizations.