First Amendment

Antifa Members Sue Journalist for ‘Stealing’ Their Public Comments. It Doesn’t Go Well for Them.

By Daniel M

December 25, 2021

Mere days after filing a federal copyright lawsuit against journalist Andy Ngo, the violent Antifa members have retreated to a corner to suck their thumbs.

Grace Morgan and Melissa Lewis, who ally with Rose City Antifa and the Pacific Northwest Youth Liberation Front, and their Leftist “activist” attorneys brought the lawsuit nearly two weeks ago, alleging that Ngo retweeted their publicly disseminated videos without their permission.

Harmeet Dhillon, whose co-counsel at Center for American Liberty, Ron Coleman, defended Ngo, told the Post Millennial that the lawsuit ended as it began, frivolously, adding: “If U.S. copyright law depended upon whether the creator liked, or wanted critics to review their work, we might as well tear up the First Amendment because no journalist such as Mr. Ngo, would ever be able to critique anything the author didn’t want them to.”

On Monday, Los Angeles attorney Larry Zerner withdrew the lawsuit. Dhillon hinted that he and his co-counsel, activist Alan Kessler, did so because they would face sanctions for bringing such a “patently frivolous lawsuit” that was “quietly dismissed after an honest discussion amongst counsel.” In other words, they stated the obvious to the Antifa attorneys: you look dumb, your lawsuit is an insult to our and any judge’s intelligence, you’re going to lose, and you may have your hand slapped by a judge.

The paperwork filed with the court noted the move was “pursuant to rules of federal civil procedure.”

Well well… it looks like the frivolous Antifa troll lawsuit against our @Liberty_Ctr client @MrAndyNgo was quietly dismissed after an honest discussion amongst counsel. A meet and confer that yielded an efficient result! A Christmas miracle! 🎄🎅🏽 Ho Ho Ho! pic.twitter.com/OANvyLDE3n

— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) December 23, 2021

The Antifa attorneys, seeking $300,000 for Morgan and Lewis, probably got their bills covered, but the Antifa comrades-in-arms were embarrassed for them.

#Antifa accounts react to the the news that the Portland Antifa members withdrew their frivolous lawsuit against me. They feel embarrassed by their comrades. pic.twitter.com/ClaMNblh3S

— Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) December 24, 2021

New York Antifa was bummed. Someone named “leftkist” wondered aloud if the attorneys bringing the lawsuit knew how Twitter worked, and another openly mocked their comrades by stating the lawsuit “went over like a wet fart.”

As Ngo also noted, however, the bogus lawsuit had its intended effect of being disseminated throughout the mainstream and Leftist media, Wikipedia, and all the search engines.

.@MiaCathell investigated the backgrounds of those in the frivolous lawsuit. She found that the two “journalists” had advocated for violent extremism in support of #Antifa. One took up arms & also deleted a post where she admitted to committing a crime. https://t.co/5YXqOXEzK1

— Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) December 23, 2021

Dhillon demanded news outlets that ran stories reporting the lawsuit run an update. She called out the Intercept, asking the news website “isn’t it good journalism to follow up, guys?” The attorney asked the Oregonian, “Yo — did I miss the follow-up piece about the lawsuit dismissed three days ago? Don’t your reporters want the public to know what happened to the ‘copyright lawsuit’?” To The Daily Beast she asked, “What happened to that lawsuit dismissed three days ago? Why did the plaintiffs dismiss it? Want to inform your readers?” Dhillon asked the Daily Dot to “update your readers on how this puff piece you wrote for Antifa, [that] didn’t turn out?”

Two days after the lawsuit was dropped, Lewis lamented on Twitter that she had done some dumb, “impulsive” stuff before because she is a “people pleaser.” She announced she was seeing a therapist to work through her issues.

Hello, I’m actually taking the time everyone has been telling me to take for over a year.

A lot of therapy to address some people pleasing behaviors that can make me extremely foolish and impulsive. I’ll be staying close to my friends and in the backseat for a while.

— Melissa “Claudio” Lewis (@Claudio_Report) December 22, 2021

She’s using the old Hollywood “I’m going to rehab” trick to explain her bad life choices.

Good luck, lady. We’d all be happier, however, if you simply stopped cheerleading cop attacks and all manner of uncivil behavior.

The Twitter account Pacific Northwest Antifa Watch pointed out that although they lost the lawsuit, it’s still a win-win for white Antifa members because they can lose and still say it was because of the white supremacist justice system! Everybody’s happy!

Having their case thrown out is still a win for them. Now @Claudio_Report and @GraveMorgan can wax poetic about how unfair our white supremacist system is!! 🤦‍♂️#antifa #idiots https://t.co/2cwisSQd3s

— PNWAntifaWatch (@pnw_watch) December 24, 2021

Dhillon said the frivolous lawsuit was all the more galling because the only people pretending that Twitter is “a platform designed for exactly” the purpose of sharing content and videos were the people now pretending that retweeting and sharing videos, while crediting the source, was now somehow illegal unless they gave their permission.

Story cited here.