Candace Owens asked a federal court in Tennessee to dismiss portions of the defamation lawsuit filed against her by Brian Harpole, the former head of security for Charlie Kirk.
Owens’ Thursday filing said the lawsuit should be dismissed, in part, because her statements about Harpole are “inactionable opinions, rhetorical hyperbole, and questions incapable of defamatory meaning.”
Because the filing argued that Owens’ statements about Harpole’s security performance are opinion, as opposed to statements of fact, the attorneys asserted Owens is protected under the First Amendment.
For example, in one podcast episode when Owens said Harpole and his team “should all be fired,” the filing argued Harpole omitted context Owens shared about the activities of the security team on the day Kirk was assassinated. With the proper context, Owens’ filing asserted her statement is identifiable as “quintessential opinion commentary: It is a conclusion based on facts laid out for listeners who were left free to draw their own conclusions.”
The filing made similar arguments about Owens’ statement that, “when you spend millions of dollars on security… they don’t have you sitting like a sitting duck and forget to have an ambulance behind you,” and her question, “is this how assassinations happen?”
According to the lawsuit, “sitting duck” is a figure of speech that cannot be used to construe a statement of fact. Owens’ question similarly “fails independently because it is a question,” which courts have determined cannot be defamatory.
The request for partial dismissal also argued Harpole became a limited-purpose public figure, which would make it harder for him to successfully bring a defamation suit against any commentator, when he appeared in public interviews following Kirk’s assassination.
It further claimed Harpole has failed to provide evidence that Owens’ statements have resulted in diminished business for Harpole’s security company, instead pointing to the fact Harpole was managing Kirk’s security at the time of his assassination.
Owens’ filing further claims that the lawsuit attempts to impose liability on Owens for statements made by her former podcast guest, Mitch Snow, who only recently accepted service of the lawsuit, and represented himself in his first filing to the court.
Snow claimed on Owens’ podcast that he witnessed Harpole, Kirk’s wife, politicians, intelligence, and military officials meet at a military installation in Nevada one day before Kirk was assassinated.
Owens also notably acknowledged that it is an “unsettled question” whether the Tennessee Public Participation Act (TPPA), which protects people from meritless lawsuits, would apply to the federal court system.
“The TPPA’s application to lawsuits filed in federal court is an unsettled question in the Sixth Circuit,” the lawyers wrote in Owens’ filing. It later argued the “dismissal provision and fee-shifting provisions” from the TPPA “may still apply.”
It argues, “Commentary on failures by security personnel who were supposed to protect a prominent political figure who was assassinated on live television sits squarely within the statute’s enumerated categories.”
It remains unclear when the court will respond to the filing, as all federal judges in Middle Tennessee recused themselves from the lawsuit after Owens retained an attorney who previously sued the court over a local rule that limited his ability to speak publicly about his cases.
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Tom Pappert is a 2025 recipient of the Dao Prize and the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star. He also reports for the Star News Network. Follow Tom on X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Candace Owens” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
Please, raise your hand if you believe Charlie’s security was affective on the day he was murdered.
Anyone?
Raise your hand if their performance deserves no criticism.
Anyone?
Anyone?