Baltimore Examiner blogger Adam Meister has filed a motion seeking dismissal of the $21 million libel suit filed against him last month by Baltimore City Councilwoman Belinda K. Conaway.

Arguing that Conaway is “attempting to silence” him “during the period of her re-election campaign,” Meister’s June 23rd motion calls Conaway’s lawsuit “a SLAPP suit.” 

The suit, “if allowed to proceed, will chill free speech in Baltimore,” Meister alleges in the motion, prepared for him pro bono by attorneys Christopher R. Mellott and C. Alexander Hortis, of Venable LLP.

The motion invokes the “own words” defense against Conaway’s libel claim, an argment that he cannot defame Conaway by quoting her own words. (Meister has linked to legal documents in which Conaway has stated that a home in Randallstown  is her primary residence.) Conaway says those documents were an error and that her principal residence is a home in the city.

The motion also argues that Meister’s “rhetorical hyperbole” is shielded, as well.

 The motion notes that, “remarkably,” Conaway complains about not just the March article at issue but Meister’s “long history of writing negative articles” about her.

“If politicians can punish journalists by dragging them into litigation for reporting on the politicians’ own statements, on maters of public concern, then the First Amendment is endangered in Batimore.”

A hearing on the motion to dismiss is scheduled for Aug. 1