Sued! (Dan Bishop files defamation complaint against pretty-boy opponent in AG race)

This lawyering up and filing stuff is spreading like wildfire across the state’s political scene.  The governor’s race has seen some of it lately.  Now, it appears we’re going to get some in the race for attorney general.  (Of course, the AG candidates won’t have to look far for their legal advice. They’re both lawyers, themselves.) :

U.S. Representative Jeff Jackson’s campaign is being sued for defamation by his opponent for the office of North Carolina attorney general.

Dan Bishop and his campaign filed suit against Jackson’s campaign and the North Carolina Democratic Party on Oct. 3, claiming that they defamed him and framed him as representing clients who stole from the elderly. 

Democrat Jeff Jackson, a former prosecutor who has received attention on social media — especially TikTok — for his explanations of political on-goings in Congress, is running for the attorney general seat after his congressional district was redrawn. His opponent Dan Bishop is a Republican known for writing North Carolina’s “bathroom bill,” which prevented transgender people from using their preferred bathroom.

Dynata, a company that conducts political polling. was also named in the suit. Dynata called a North Carolina voter in July, Bishop claims, and asked them: “Would you be more or less likely to vote for Dan Bishop if you knew that, as a lawyer, he represented people who stole money from the elderly?”

The question was framed as a fact, Bishop says, and hundreds of other voters in North Carolina may have been contacted, which has the potential to harm his campaign. He never represented anyone who stole from the elderly in his almost 30 years of practice, he argues in his suit. 

The claim came from reporting by The New Republic, Bishop says, who reported in June that he had represented organizations accused of questionable business practices, including companies and individuals operating Ponzi schemes. It reported that in 2011 Bishop represented businessmen accused of trying to defraud a 78-year-old woman recovering from heart surgery. 

Here is The New Republic article in question.  With all this bashing from the political left about “misinformation” and “disinformation,”  you’d think these folks would work a lot harder to get their facts right.

The TNR article claims — as fact — that Bishop has only been in Congress since 2023.  Actually, he was first elected via a September 2019 special election. (Don’t hold your breath waiting for a correction or for one of those WRAL weenies to run a “fact check.”)

MORE:

[…] Attorneys general represent state agencies, lead the state’s Justice Department, and act as a public advocate on the behalf of consumers. They influence proposed legislation and the enforcement of laws. Bishop’s history may indicate he doesn’t plan to protect North Carolina consumers, The New Republic said.

Bishop called the reporting defamatory and riddled with falsehoods, and said that Jackson and the other defendants likely supplied The New Republic with the lawsuits and asked for the story be published. They did this, Bishop said, “to concoct and contrive damaging characterizations of his career unsupported by facts, all to the end of undermining Bishop’s prospects of winning the attorney general’s race.”

The New Republic did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was also not named as a defendant in the case. 

“They acted in conscious disregard of the truth as evidenced by cherry picking and distorting and mischaracterizing individual cases, and subordinating accuracy and truth to the object of competitive advantage in the campaign,” Bishop said. 

Current Attorney General Josh Stein also faced a defamation lawsuit during his campaign in 2020, when Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill sued after Stein ran an ad that claimed O’Neill let rape kits go untested. Governor Roy Cooper, who was the attorney general before Stein, also had a libel lawsuit filed against him in 2000 by Dan Boyce, who disputed a campaign ad by Cooper that said Boyce charged $28,000 an hour to represent taxpayers while suing the state. Cooper issued an apology for the ad in 2014.[…]

Waiting 14 years to apologize?  *Way to keep it classy, Gomer.*

MORE:

[…] Jackson’s campaign and other defendants are following in their footsteps, Bishop claimed. 

A poll by the conservative John Locke Foundation found that Jackson gained a lead over Bishop in September, polling 44.6% to Bishop’s 43.1%. In August, Bishop was ahead of Jackson by 3.9% points, but lost his lead. 

Another poll conducted on older voters by AARP has Jackson leading over Bishop by four points: 47% to 43% in the race. Democrats have maintained the attorney general position in recent history, as the last five attorneys general were Democrats, and the last time a Republican was elected to the position was in 1896. […]