Yesterday afternoon, Bradlee Dean was told that before he could move his defamation suit against Rachel Maddow from DC Superior Court to a federal court, he had to pay $24,600 worth of attorneys' fees to Maddow's lawyers. Well, hours after that order came down, Dean all but announced that suit against her is nothing more than a publicity stunt and a SLAPP. Now he wants the judge who issued that order, Jean Zeldon recused from the case.
Larry Klayman, the attorney for Dean, believes that his client has every right to pursue the defamation lawsuit in federal court. "We didn't hurt anyone," he says. "The case never got very far."
[snip]
Dean thinks that the judge is showing "bias" and in a declaration to the court yesterday, points to a few reasons.
He says the judge has announced her retirement from the bench, but has decided to preside over this case just to punish him. He says the judge has mocked him and his counsel while jumping to the conclusion that "this case involves a serious attack on (Defendants') First Amendment rights" and that "they had every right to retain distinguished counsel to defend them."
Dean believes that he and Klayman are being portrayed as "scoundrels for having raised serious issues about inflated fees and billing" as well as the ones who are delaying the proceedings unnecessarily.
So he wants Judge Zeldon out of the picture. "This extra-judicial bias and prejudice is also the admitted result of Judge Zeldon acting like a 'woman scorned' after YCR and I decided to file suit in federal court," he says in a legal filing.
News flash, Bradlee--if you want a judge to rule in your favor, it's probably not a good idea to make groundless attacks against her. But then again, considering his attorney is Larry Klayman, I'm not surprised Dean would make such a filing.
One would think that if Dean's case had any merit at all--and we already knew it didn't--he'd just suck it up, pay the fee and move on. But he didn't. In the process, he may have given additional ammo to Maddow and MSNBC's claim that Dean is forum-shopping to avoid getting sanctioned under DC's anti-SLAPP law.