Update: ACORN sues Breitbart and the Dynamic Duo of O’Keefe and Giles: PDF of complaint…

Update: NRO reader and attorney concurs with MiM’s assessment of broad discovery for defendant’s Breitbart, Giles and O’Keefe. Show us da books baby! (both sets!, lol)

Third, with a little bit of careful thought, the defendants could plead some interesting counterclaims. The federal False Claims Act and RICO come to mind, and would be very interesting.

Fourth, even if the defendants don’t plead any counterclaims, the scope of discovery against ACORN will be incredibly broad, as it almost always is in civil litigation. ACORN has far, far more to lose from what could come out during discovery than what they are asking for in this suit.

Here is the PDF of the complaint and demand for jury trial. ACORN is suing as a group incorporated in LA and the two fired MD employees are also suing. The defendants named include Breitbart, LLC as well as O’Keefe and Giles for their work exposing ACORN corruption in the expose series for Big Government.com.

They want 500k for each fired employee, 1 million for ACORN, 1 thousand for each Plaintiff, by which I wonder if they mean each of the 500,000 ACORN members they claim to represent in the complaint, plus 1 million in punitive damages from each of the three defendants AND an immediate RESTRAINING ORDER TO STOP AIRING OF THE TAPES

I think the last part is key. This is meant to put the kaibosh on airing the rest of the tapes. I am hopeful they have more on the HUD Grants ACORN gets and the mortgage fraud they allegedly perpetrate.

To put on an affirmative defense, since ACORN dragged their schtick ‘we represent 500k low income people’, yada yada, and asked for 1k for each ACORN employee, PLUS asked for punitives,  can’t subpoenas duces tacum fly? Can’t discovery provide some clarity into the opaque ACORN maze of ‘shell’ corporations and track the federal money?

WSJ:

Acorn — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — filed a lawsuit Wednesday against conservative activists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, who posed as a prostitute-and-pimp duo at a number of Acorn offices. O’Keefe and Giles posted on the Web their hidden-camera videos of Acorn employees giving them tax advice on a brothel business. The community organization is also suing Breitbart.com, which posted the videos.

In a complaint filed in Maryland’s Circuit Court for Baltimore City, Acorn says two Baltimore employees in one of the hidden-camera videos were taped without their consent in violation of Maryland law…

*Liar Liar clip courtesy of jonturk26