Gee whiz, there's nothing suspicious about this news, huh?
Minnesota Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar has deleted tweets that blamed the Covington Catholic teens for a confrontation with a Native American activist last week.
Gosh, I wonder why?
Well, probably because Rep. Ilhan Omar has become the latest public figure to pop-up on the radar of Robert Barnes, the attorney for the Covington Catholic students. It just so happens he's threatening to sue pretty much anyone who may have spread “libel” against his clients.
Libel is a form of written defamation. If the attorney can prove public figures like Rep Omar spread misinformation about his client, and the misinformation caused damage to his client's well being, he's very likely got a case he can win.
And considering that people have been making death threats against his client, 16-yr-old Nick Sandmann, it seems like it would be pretty easy for Mr Barnes to prove said case to a judge.
So what exactly did Rep Omar delete from her Twitter news-feed that caused all this excitement?
"The boys were protesting a woman’s right to choose & yelled ‘it’s not rape if you enjoy it."
She also falsely wrote that Sandmann and his classmates “were taunting 5 Black men before they surrounded Phillips and led racist chants.”
It turns out those black men were Black Israelites (who many describe as black nationalists or black supremacists).
The boys weren't taunting the black men; quite the opposite, actually. In fact, at a particularly tense moment before the now infamous interaction with Nathan Phillips, the elderly Native American man, the group of Black Israelites told one of the Catholic school children that he was going to have his internal organs stolen from his body. Suggesting the Black Israelites were victims of the Covington student's harassment isn't even remotely accurate.
In response to the news that Rep Omar might be sued by the Covington Catholic school students for libel, some have pointed out that it's extremely difficult to sue a member of Congress for defamation. This is technically true, but the kids probably still have a case. Defamation cannot occur as long as the congressman (or women, in this case) is making the statement on the floor of either the House of Representatives or the Senate, which has been knowingly and maliciously abused for purely partisan political purposes. Since Rep Omar was on Twitter, and not on the floor of Congress when she made this statement, she's very likely not immune.
Barnes, who was made famous after representing actor Wesley Snipes in a 2008 tax evasion case, is representing the students pro bono.
Edited version of photo by Getty Images