Rep. Devin Nunes has become the target of a viral Twitter joke.
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Rep. Devin Nunes isn't happy, and he's decided to sue the targets of his ire.
The latest suit the California Republican's filed is against newspaper publisher McClatchy for a story published in one of its papers, The Fresno Bee, about a supposed charity cruise on the San Francisco Bay four years ago. According to that story, a former employee of a winery Nunes invested in filed suit claiming the cruise included drug use and sex workers.
In his suit against McClatchy, filed Monday, Nunes claims the story was "was part of a scheme to defame" him. McClatchy said in a statement that the lawsuit was "wholly without merit" and added that Nunes didn't ask for a correction before filing the lawsuit. Nunes' office didn't respond to a request for comment.
The filing was published by McClatchy-owned Sacramento Bee.
If Nunes hoped his suit would silence the paper and stem the story's spread, he appears to have failed. Shortly after news of the lawsuit broke, Twitter users began posting the hashtag #YachtCocaineProstitutes to bring attention to the original story, and embarrass Nunes.
"Please DO NOT use the hashtag #YachtCocaineProstitutes in reference to @DevinNunes," one Twitter user posted. "He does not like it."
The hashtag quickly gained traction, and at one point was the second-most trending item on Twitter in the US, just below discussion of a contentious congressional hearing on the spread of extremism and white supremacy online.
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