The Florida Supreme Court has rejected a bid by former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn to resuscitate his $50 million defamation lawsuit against Rick Wilson, the co-founder of the advocacy group the Lincoln Project.
The high court denied a petition by Flynn, a retired lieutenant general and former Trump administration official, on April 2, adding that it would not entertain a motion for rehearing of the case. The decision leaves in place a December ruling from the Second District Court of Appeal that classified Wilson’s references to Flynn as an employee of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a figure in the QAnon conspiracy theory as either opinion or rhetorical hyperbole, which are protected by the First Amendment.
Flynn’s attorneys had argued that the appeals court misapplied Florida’s anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) statutes, alleging that various Florida appellate courts have different interpretations of the laws and that the state Supreme Court should have determined if the Second District applied the law correctly.
But Wilson’s attorneys argued in briefs to the high court that the circuit court granted Wilson summary judgment in the case. In addition, the lower courts affirmed Flynn’s claim lacked merit and that Flynn’s lawsuit was brought to chill Wilson’s freedom of speech.
“Like it or not .. attacks (based on public issues) are a characteristic feature of our democracy – regardless of the political persuasion of the speaker and regardless of the political persuasion of the public figure on the receiving end of that speech,” the Second District Court of Appeal said in its ruling. “As the trial court noted, Wilson's tweets may not have been polite, and they may not have been fair. But the First Amendment required neither. …”
In an email to the Florida Record, Wilson said he was happy with the Florida Supreme Court’s decision but not surprised by it. The legal maneuver by the Binnall Law Group, which represented Flynn, was absurd, he said.
“We knew from the moment Flynn and the Binnall Law Firm filed this suit that its purpose was lawfare and harassment, and an attempt to chill my free speech rights under the First Amendment,” Wilson said. “Flynn's case has now been rejected at every level in the state court system, and the only remaining items of business are to collect my legal expenses from Flynn, which the court has determined I am entitled to.”
He vowed to continue his efforts to zealously guard his rights to free speech.
Wilson criticized a statement from Flynn after the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022, when Flynn called former President Joe Biden’s foreign policy actions corrupt.
“Our president rarely entertains questions or takes responsibility for his tone deafness and failures,” Flynn said. “The WH has ignored and laughed at Putin’s legitimate security concerns, and legitimate ethnic problems in … Ukraine.”
“Putin employee Mike Flynn,” Wilson responded in a tweet on X, formerly Twitter.
He also suggested that Flynn was the mysterious “Q” figure underpinning the QAnon conspiracy theory. Q was purportedly a government insider warning against “deep state” actions to destroy Trump during his first term.
The appeals court concluded that the former lieutenant general had a “complicated relationship” with the QAnon movement, alternatively suggesting that the movement was a terrorist organization and posting a video of him and his family using a popular QAnon slogan (“Where we go one, we go all!”).