A federal judge in Georgia has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Stefan Passantino, a former White House ethics lawyer under President Trump, who accused members of the House Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack of civil conspiracy and invasion of privacy. Passantino’s lawsuit centered around claims that Committee members leaked transcripts of confidential interviews to CNN in order to harm his reputation and his professional standing.
Passantino, who served as deputy White House counsel during the Trump administration, later worked in the private sector and represented various individuals who testified before the January 6th Committee. One of his notable clients was Cassidy Hutchinson, a former special assistant to President Trump. Passantino claimed that in May 2022, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney and Senior Investigative Counsel Dan George had contacted Hutchinson without his knowledge, undermining his legal representation by suggesting that Passantino was not advancing her interests due to his ties to a Trump-affiliated third-party. This led Hutchinson to seek new counsel.
In December 2022, a CNN reporter informed Passantino that an unreleased transcript from one of Hutchinson’s interviews indicated that Passantino had advised her to withhold truthful information during her testimony. Hutchinson herself testified that Passantino had never instructed her to lie but had suggested that she could say “I don’t recall” to avoid perjury when she couldn’t remember certain details.
Following the CNN report, which was based on the leaked transcripts, Passantino filed a lawsuit claiming that the Committee’s leak to the media was part of a deliberate effort to damage his reputation. He argued that the Committee’s actions were intended to harm his legal, political, and business relationships.
The lawsuit was filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), which allows individuals to sue the federal government for certain types of harm caused by government actions. However, U.S. District Judge Eleanor L. Ross ruled that Passantino’s claims could not proceed under the FTCA because they were based on alleged defamation, which is explicitly excluded from the scope of the FTCA. The judge reasoned that the core of Passantino’s claims was that the Committee’s leaks to CNN included defamatory statements about him, which could not form the basis of a lawsuit under the FTCA’s “libel and slander” exception.
In her ruling, Judge Ross emphasized that Passantino’s claims of invasion of privacy and civil conspiracy were essentially defamation claims, which the FTCA does not cover. She pointed out that the harm Passantino suffered was directly tied to the allegedly false information leaked to the media. Without the false statements, he would not have experienced the reputational damage he claimed.
Ross further noted that Passantino had failed to specify what private information was leaked by the Committee. She also referenced a subsequent report from the House Committee on House Administration, which discussed the “failures and politicization” of the January 6th Committee. This report further undermined Passantino’s case by showing that the information leaked about him was, in fact, defamatory.
Ultimately, Judge Ross concluded that Passantino’s injury was entirely attributable to the allegedly defamatory statements made by the Committee. Since defamation claims are explicitly excluded from the FTCA, the lawsuit was dismissed.
