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Home – Virginia Politics & News – Judge Denies Motion to Compel Abigail Spanberger to Testify in Defamation Case

Judge Denies Motion to Compel Abigail Spanberger to Testify in Defamation Case

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA—A Richmond judge denied two motions against the Democrat Party of Virginia and Gov. Abigail Spanberger Monday in a defamation case, and the plaintiff told the Daily Signal that he plans to appeal the decisions.

“I will be appealing these decisions,” Thomas Speciale, a retired Army intelligence officer and former Republican U.S. Senate candidate, told the Daily Signal outside the courtroom of the Richmond City Circuit Court.

Speciale, a retired Army intelligence officer and former Republican U.S. Senate candidate, sued the Democrat Party of Virginia for allegedly defaming him. The party issued a press release on Nov. 3, 2022, claiming that Speciale “attacked the U.S. Capitol” on Jan. 6, 2021, and suggesting that he “bloodied and beat law enforcement officers.” Speciale, who vehemently contests both claims, sued in 2023, and in the course of discovery, he found that then-U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger’s 2022 reelection campaign had drafted the press release.

“The press release defames me, stating that I was a ‘notable insurrectionist who attacked the United States Capitol’ and that I ‘bloodied and beat law enforcement,’” Speciale previously told the Daily Signal. “The truth is the exact opposite—I was warning the government of possible violence at the National Counterterrorism Center and the FBI, and I was there trying to stop potential violence on January 6th.”

Speciale claims that the Democrat Party has stonewalled the discovery process, the process by which parties in a lawsuit obtain documents from one another to prove their cases.

“This continued practice of........

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