One year after two Sweetwater County lawmakers filed a defamation suit against a Wyoming Freedom Caucus-affiliated political action committee, a jury trial has been scheduled in the case.
In June, a six-person jury will decide whether WY Freedom PAC defamed Rock Springs Republican Reps. J.T. Larson and Cody Wylie when it sent text messages and mailers to voters calling a vote on a 2024 budget amendment a vote to remove former President Donald Trump from the presidential ballot.
The PAC launched in 2023 to support the hard-line Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which won control of the Wyoming House in November. Among the PAC’s targets were Rock Springs Republicans Larson and Wylie. In their complaint, the two lawmakers allege that the PAC knew its statements were false and, therefore, made them with actual malice — a legal standard in defamation cases involving public figures or officials.
While the two lawmakers ultimately fended off Freedom Caucus-backed challengers in the primary election, they argue in the complaint that the PAC’s statements were especially damaging in a conservative state like Wyoming, where “support for Trump is so strong … that whether one supports Trump has become a proxy for whether a person is a true Republican.”
Attorneys for the PAC, meanwhile, have accused Wylie and Larson of “seeking to punish and censor criticism of their records as legislators and to profit from their public services.”
The PAC also argues that the mailers and text messages do not constitute defamation and “were made in the course of political campaigning, where imaginative expressions and hyperbole are at their zenith.”
Outside of legal proceedings, Freedom Caucus lawmakers have defended the mailers, calling the complaint “lawfare.”
The lawsuit, filed in July 2024, included a request for a jury trial, which is scheduled to span five days starting on June 15, 2026, according to a scheduling order by District Court Judge Richard L. Lavery.
How we got here
The Wyoming Legislature has never in its history considered, debated, nor voted on any proposal to remove President Donald Trump from the ballot in any election, in any state.
Campaign mailers and text messages stating otherwise referred to a vote on a budget bill footnote, WY Freedom PAC Chairman Kari Drost previously told WyoFile.
In recent years, lawmakers have regularly clashed over which elected officials should have the authority to represent the state’s interest in litigation. The debate reignited in the 2024 budget session after Secretary of State Chuck Gray joined Ohio and Missouri’s Republican secretaries of state in filing an amicus brief that advocated overturning a Colorado court’s decision to remove Trump from that state’s ballot because of his role in inciting the Jan. 6, 2021 riots at the U.S. Capitol.
The Joint Appropriations Committee responded by adding a footnote to the budget limiting the secretary of state’s ability to sue on Wyoming’s behalf.
“No funds shall be appropriated under this section shall be expended without specific legislative authorization for the secretary of state or the office of the secretary of state to initiate any litigation or participate in any litigation initiated in a court outside of Wyoming in which the state, the secretary of state or the office of the secretary of state is not a named party,” the proposed language read.
The footnote was motivated by protecting the separation of powers and ensuring the governor — the state’s chief executive — remained the one office with the authority to speak on behalf of Wyoming in a courtroom, some lawmakers argued. That included Clark Stith, who lost his reelection bid in August and is now counsel for Larson and Wylie.
Freedom Caucus members, however, argued that Gray’s office needed the ability to act quickly. The footnote was ultimately left out of the final budget bill passed by both chambers, but was portrayed by the PAC’s mailers as a vote for or against Trump being on the ballot.
“[He] voted with the RADICAL LEFT to remove President Trump from the ballot,” a postcard targeting Wylie stated. A similar mailer aimed at Larson accused him of voting “NO to KEEP President Trump on the ballot this fail.”
What now?
In March, Judge Lavery ruled that the case could continue, rejecting a motion to dismiss the matter entirely, according to reporting by the Rocket Miner.
“Defendant did not merely misrepresent Plaintiffs’ views or fail to state the whole truth. Defendant fabricated a putative ‘vote’ on an issue that never came before the Legislature and placed it in a list of votes on other topics of legislation,” the ruling stated.
Lavery did, however, dismiss plaintiff’s “false light” claim, which is a more obscure privacy law than defamation. It deals with communications placing someone in a false light, among other things.
From here, both parties will begin preparing for trial via a formal process known as discovery, which involves exchanging information about witnesses and evidence.
It’s time to show these freedom caucus numbskulls the door. They are simply tools of the DC charlatans, and have no ideas or policies of their own. The current Republican majority nationally has shown us exactly who they work for, and it’s not the working people of Wyoming.
I’m glad to see that these two legislators are fighting back against this kind of trash. Good luck in winning their cases.
I hope they win. And while I know this is not the point of this article I am still so flabbergasted that a felon was voted into the highest office. I guess no one ever thought about it but I guess now we see there is a need for a law to prevent felons from running for office. If a felon can’t vote then they shouldn’t be able to run for office either.
quite an assortment of maga sell-outs and whack jobs that make up the UnFreedom Caucus. Phony christians, white supremacists, carpetbaggers, heart mountain rube usda subsidy check cashers and liars/double talkers in general. The same people that wanted to take your public lands and sell it off for pennies to the dollar to their orange baboon inspired gods. These morons thought they could hide behind these supposedly anonymous fliers but no, the victims are fighting back. The UnFreedom people should be paraded in a public square and tarred n’ feathered
Really? This is a comment on an article about a defamation case? There is enough irony here to build a skyscraper, if irony were a building material.
Maybe someday the Wyoming voter will tire of the misinformation and deception of outsiders, or maybe they will learn the importance of voting. The fake christians are in control.Their main objective is to worship the oval office menace and escape taxes.
Mr. Townsend, that day can not come soon enough.