The political action committee affiliated with the Wyoming Freedom Caucus asked a Sweetwater County judge on Friday to dismiss a defamation case filed against the PAC this summer.
Rock Springs Reps. J.T. Larson and Cody Wylie filed the complaint in July after the PAC sent text messages and mailers to voters equating a vote on a 2024 budget amendment to the two lawmakers voting to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot.
Larson and Wylie allege that the PAC knew its statements were false — the Legislature has never held a vote to remove Trump from the ballot — and therefore made them with actual malice, a legal standard in defamation cases. Earlier this month, the two legislators filed an amended complaint to account for additional mailers sent after their initial lawsuit and to try to strengthen their legal argument. Both Larson and Wylie won their reelection bids against Freedom Caucus-backed opponents in the primary, but the suit alleges the statements caused harm to their reputations and one of their private businesses.
But the lawsuit fails to state a claim and the allegations do not constitute defamation, according to the PAC’s motion to dismiss filed on Friday. Instead, the motion argues, Larson and Wylie are “seeking to punish and censor criticism of their records as legislators and to profit from their public service.”
The lawsuit “neglects to include important context for the speech at issue,” the PAC’s motion argues, adding that statements made to voters “were made in the course of political campaigning, where imaginative expressions and hyperbole are at their zenith.”
The PAC is represented by Teton County’s Mark Jackowski and Washington D.C.-based attorney Stephen Klein — the latter of whom has litigated other high-profile cases related to Wyoming elections, including one recently heard in federal court, according to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.
In their amended complaint, Larson and Wylie contend 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.”
The PAC argues otherwise.
“At their worst, a reasonable person would take WY Freedom PAC’s statements as a prompt to investigate the legislative records of the plaintiffs, and there is nothing bad about that — to the contrary, it’s the very stuff of American democracy.”
How we got here
During the 2024 budget session, lawmakers clashed over which elected officials should have the authority to represent the state’s interest in litigation. That debate came after Secretary of State Chuck Gray joined Ohio and Missouri’s Republican secretaries of state in filing an amicus brief that advocated for 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.
Some lawmakers, including Rep. Clark Stith (R-Rock Springs), who is now counsel for Larson and Wylie in the case, argued on the House floor that the footnote was about separation of powers. More specifically, the footnote ensured the state’s chief executive — the governor — remained the one office with the authority to speak on behalf of Wyoming in a courtroom, Stith and others maintained.
Defending the mailers
While Larson and Wylie stand by this and argue in the amended complaint that voting on such a footnote “was not a vote to remove Trump’s name from the ballot,” the PAC says otherwise.
“The plaintiffs are welcome to this opinion, but it is hardly one with which disagreement makes for material falsity,” the motion states.
“It is far from false to claim that these votes were, in effect, votes to keep Trump off the ballot. If falsity could even be proven — and it cannot — in this context the claim will fall far short of the threshold of actual malice, for the PAC is entitled to its position in a political disagreement.”
Even if the statements at issue were false, the PAC argues, and “were made to ‘registered Republicans’ and ‘for the purpose of influencing the outcome of the primary election,’ a claim that one voted in favor of excluding Trump from the presidential ballot is not capable of a defamatory meaning.”
While the motion asks the court to dismiss the case, the PAC makes an alternative suggestion that the court resolve the case without a full trial. The plaintiffs, who previously requested a jury trial, now have the opportunity to respond.
A “reasonable person”, understanding the responsibility when employing the first amendment would not indulge in irresponsible hyperbole, lying, or fairytales. Are we to accept the excuse that all is fair because it’s a campaign and anything goes? Have we allowed our ethical or moral responsibility to speak freely and truthfully to become eroded? It’s one thing to disagree with one another on issues, it’s entirely another thing to spread falsehoods in order to gain sympathy. The damage in spreading falsehoods eats away at our communities. Is this really the way the folks of Wyoming want to resolve differences or plead their case on issues? I have seen the goodwill and neighbor helping neighbor in our communities. Let that be the way we move forward.
Their mantra is freedom. Freedom for who i ask? Demi gods is more like it. Time to reclaim this state and our gop. The lies have become intolerable and are taking up space that should be used to actually govern this state and move us forward. Real freedom lies in judtice and equality for all in this state. This dictaorial bull shit needs to be stomped out.
There is an appropriate theme song for the out of state funded Freedom flunkies from Stop the World, I Want to Get Off, a musical by Anthony Newly and Leslie Bricusse (1961); second act:
“Mumbo Jumbo, rhubarb rhubarb/ Up your flubarb, Liberty Hall.
And, dear friends, if I’m elected,/I’m all right, Jack–screw you all!”
So now the tag line is “We’re the Freedom Caucus and it’s an election…So of course we’re going to LIE about people who don’t agree with us.”
Wyoming has an opportunity to step up and lead the nation to restore honesty and veracity in elections. Claiming that campaign materials which use, “imaginative expressions and hyperbole,” or in other words, lies and bull(feathers) is acceptable is akin to claiming orange-tinted facial makeup is your true tan. The outright deceit of the campaign mailers, however, is an excellent prediction of Freedom Caucus maneuvers in the upcoming session. Wyoming residents – be ready to witness other exorbitant falsehoods they’ll spout in obedience to their out-of-state handlers. If the judge in this case remonstrates and censures this behavior, Wyoming can set an example for our sister states that reprehensible falsehoods don’t belong in the campaign sphere.
I don’t agree with JT Larson and Cody Wylie on a lot of things, but I think it’s time for our youth to step up and get involved. I give these young men credit for stepping into the fire. The outright lies against them should be tried in court and those responsible should face jail time. This is not only about the reputations of JT and Cody, but about election interference. How about politicians start telling us what they’re going to do, instead of telling us what their opponents have done?
i can’t think of a group that is more falsely named than the “freedom” caucus. If we were to name them according to their wishes they would have to be called the “no freedom” caucus or the “loss of freedom” caucus. They want to bend everything and everybody to their will. they are all about taking freedoms and choice away from people. They represent the opposite of freedom, more like enslavement. They represent a “do as you are told” mentality where choice has been taken away. Calling them the “freedom” caucus is like calling the color black, white. So we should think up a new name for them. How about the “your freedom doesn’t matter” caucus?
I get it. So now, when little Janie and Johnnie come home and say the neighbor’s dog ate their report cards but they had all As, when in fact the threw the cards in the trash because they had all Fs, it’s “imaginative expression and “hyperbole”?! When I was growing up, we called it LYING. I thought conservatives stood for old-fashioned values and morality. My mistake.
What have we become. We can flat ass lie and knowing defame and bully people and basically go in front of our court system and to defend this action. America with Trump and his cronies is insane.
Simple answer-(not that it matters)- don’t toss it. They are well deserved of some defamation legal problems. It’s been a long time coming and there will certainly be more.
Because, of course, lies are how we should choose candidates.