Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) leaves during recess after listening to former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testify during a House Intelligence Committee Impeachment inquiry hearing looking into President Donald Trump in Washington, on Nov. 15, 2019. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

A Manhattan federal magistrate judge on Tuesday ruled that CNN, for now, would not have to turn over privileged reporting notes behind an article linking U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes, R-California, to an alleged plot to pressure Ukrainian officials to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.

The ruling dealt a setback to Nunes, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, who sued CNN for defamation over a story it aired Nov. 22 that placed Nunes at the center of the plot, which spurred impeachment proceedings against the president.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang of the Southern District of New York granted the news network's request to stay discovery in the case until a federal judge could rule on CNN's motion to dismiss the case, which was transferred from the Eastern District of Virginia last month. That motion, she said, raised a key "threshold issue" of whether a California law had barred Nunes from bringing his lawsuit.

CNN argued in court papers that "in his rush to sue" for at least $435 million in damages, Nunes had failed to comply with a California statute that requires plaintiffs to request the retraction of an allegedly defamatory article within 20 days of its publication. Nunes' attorney, Steven Biss, denies that California statute applies and argued that the case should be reviewed under New York law.

Wang, during remote status conference Tuesday afternoon, agreed with CNN that the choice-of-law dispute raised a potentially dispositive issue that could determine whether Nunes' suit survives beyond the dismissal stage.

Wang said she was also "quite concerned about the broad scope" of Nunes' discovery demands, which, in addition to CNN's privileged news-gathering material, also information from three current and former members of Congress, foreign officials, Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and Democratic Presidential candidate Biden.

"I am staying discovery, and I am not going to enter into a case management plan at this time," Wang said before adjourning the proceeding.

The CNN report at the center of the lawsuit had quoted an attorney for Lev Parnas, a former Giuliani associate now under indictment in the Southern District, who said that Nunes had met with Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin last December in Vienna.

Parnas, who is set to stand trial later this year on campaign-finance charges, had sought to cooperate last year with Congressional impeachment investigators probing Trump's involvement with Ukraine. The Senate eventually voted to acquit the president.

According to the report, Congressional travel records showed that Nunes and three aides traveled to Europe but did not include the trip to Vienna. The story also noted that Nunes was not required to disclose the exact details of the trip and said that CNN had reached out to Nunes and others for comment. Reporter Vicky Ward later went on CNN's Cuomo Prime Time program with host Chris Cuomo to discuss the story.

Nunes has denied ever traveling to Vienna and said he had never met with Shokin. In his suit, Nunes accused CNN of to attempting to "accuse" or "impute" that he had committed felonies or crimes of moral turpitude and was unfit to "perform the duties of an office or employment for profit."

A federal judge in Richmond transferred the lawsuit last month, finding "no logical connection" to the venue in which it was filed.

Biss, who has represented Nunes in multiple cases targeting media organizations, argued Tuesday that CNN had acted with "actual malice" in running its story, and called CNN's First Amendment concerns a "red herring."

"The First Amendment shouldn't be used by media organizations to facilitate defamation," he said.

CNN's attorney Stephen Fuzesi, however, said that the First Amendment's "robust protections" were at "their very highest in a case like this," and argued that news organizations should not be ordered to turn over privileged journalistic material before a motion to dismiss has been decided.

Wang on Tuesday ordered supplemental briefing on CNN's motion to dismiss, which had been fully briefed before the case was transferred out of Richmond. The motion will ultimately be decided by U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain of the Southern District of New York.

READ MORE:

Devin Nunes' Defamation Case Against CNN Transferred to Manhattan Federal Court

Parnas' Attorney Calls on AG William Barr to Recuse From Ongoing Investigation, Prosecution

Meet Joseph Bondy, Lev Parnas' Attorney and Cannabis Law Expert