I’m Liz Mair, a former Republican National Committee spokesperson who has spent her entire professional political career working to elect Republicans. I worked to elect Carly Fiorina to the U.S. Senate. I worked to elect Carl DeMaio to Congress.

And on March 19, 2019, Rep. Devin Nunes announced that he was suing me for $250 million for doing my job as a communications strategist and exercising my God-given rights of free speech, protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Then, a short time later, Rep. Nunes announced that he was suing me in a separate lawsuit— for $150 million— again, for doing my job and using my rights of free speech to hold him accountable.

These lawsuits, in which he seeks $400 million in total from me, are a blatant effort by a sitting member of the United States Congress, and a Ranking Member of a prominent House of Representatives Committee, to use litigation as a cudgel to try to stifle free speech.

They are not the only such lawsuits that Rep. Nunes has filed. But they are especially objectionable given that free speech is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States— the same Constitution that Rep. Nunes has sworn an oath to support and defend.

As I wrote in a USA Today op-ed on this subject last year, “James Madison, fourth president of the United States, father of the Constitution and co-author of the Federalist Papers, famously commented that ‘the censorial power is in the people over the government, and not in the government over the people.’ Nunes’ lawsuit flips that notion entirely on its head.”

You can read my op-ed here, and I hope that you will do so.

The fact is, these cases may be targeted at me, but they are about everyone’s rights of free speech. If Rep. Nunes has chosen to sue me for $400 million, you can bet if you’ve ever expressed a negative opinion about him, you could be the next target of his anti-free speech litigation.

Should Rep. Nunes prevail in either of these cases, whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, Independent or something else entirely, if you’ve ever criticized or in the future criticize a congressman or other elected official, a candidate for the presidency or other prominent public official and don’t do it in a way that will win you a ‘Miss Congeniality’ award, you too can — and probably will — be sued, and potentially be bankrupted.

Litigation is costly for those who are sued, even in cases that have no merit. Rep. Nunes knows it, and so must we all.

At the end of the day, my legal defense is not about protecting and preserving my bank account. It’s about protecting and preserving your, my, and every other American’s God-given right to free speech. If we lose that, we lose a fundamental liberty without which our country will no longer exist as we know it.

Please contribute today to my legal defense, because while these cases target me, they’re really about all of us.

Many thanks for your interest and your support.