Law&Crime had a peculiar story late Thursday afternoon in the never-ending efforts to destroy Fox News. As the Gabriel Shermans and Joe Lockharts of the world continue to drum up support to sue FNC over its supposedly dangerous and unserious coronavirus coverage, the far-left group WASHLITE stepped up to the plate and filed suit in Washington State.
Everything sounded on track for WASHLITE as it filed suit April 2 in a dark blue state, a blue county (King County, which includes Seattle), and a liberal judge named Ken Schuber who’s both donated to far-left causes and received help in his campaign from a progressive political firm.
So why has WASHLITE changed its tune and moved to have Schuber disqualified from the case? And why do so only a week after filing it? The likely answer? Because they know it will fail miserably.
Let’s rewind to the beginning and WASHLITE itself.
Thanks to a profile in the Daily Beast, they further gave away the game when they gushed over board member Arthur West as “a handsome living as a professional public-interest plaintiff” who told the outlet that he “has been arrested numerous times in protest and civil-disobedience incidents, but claimed the rewards of successful lawsuits have allowed him to afford a lovely house in Olympia Wash., overlooking the Puget Sound and a fleet of pricey sports cars.”
Oh, and he insisted that, in the words of the Daily Beast, “this latest litigation against Fox is not a public-relations stunt.”
It’s okay, readers. Go ahead and laugh. In other words, West is no more than a mischief-causing ambulance chaser.
Now, back to Schubert. As Law&Crime reported, WASHLITE made a motion to have him removed and Schubert allowed it, but not before expressing his displeasure:
The judge, Hon. Ken Schubert, agreed Thursday afternoon to have the case reassigned, but took a swipe at Hallock’s affidavit through this footnote:
“Plaintiff submitted an affidavit wherein her counsel swears under penalty of perjury that a ‘fair and impartial trial’ in this case cannot be had before this Court. As of July 23, 2017, [state law] no longer requires a party seeking to disqualify a judge to file an affidavit or make such assertions.”
The article highlighted none of the following is illegal. That said, this story was both striking and swampy for a lack of a better term (click “expand”):
The judge the plaintiffs successfully disqualified generally hears criminal matters….Judges run for office in nonpartisan elections in Washington State, but a Law&Crime review of election expenditures from Schubert’s 2012 election committee shows payments to Northwest Passage Consulting, a group which states on its homepage that it tends to work with Democrats and progressives. Schubert reportedly ran unopposed in 2016 and did not report expenditures. Hallock, the plaintiff’s attorney, is running for governor of Washington on the Green Party ticket according to news reports and her campaign website.
Obviously, nothing is wrong with any of that….It could simply be that the plaintiffs, in an abundance of caution, do not want two public health matters being litigated by the same judge at roughly the same time….But we’re just reading between the lines with that speculative assessment. It could also simply be that WASHLITE is employing a completely legal delay tactic.
The fact that any of this required explanation means you’re losing.
So, while the liberal media have the utmost disdain and, in some cases, hatred for FNC, the chances of this succeeding are zilch. Along with Law&Crime, the website Courthouse News panned its chances of success as slim to none. Even lefty columnist Kara Swisher stated in The New York Times that “lawsuits are a bad idea” and that FNC is entitled to First Amendment rights as a news organization.
In review, when you have ramble-rousing “ethics” group, a board member who’s made a living off of these nonsensical legal shenanigans, an attempt to disqualify what should be a dream judge, and condemnation from across the spectrum, perhaps the anti-FNC cabal should take their ball and go home.
