Louise Mensch is the former British parliamentarian whose attack on John Kiriakou produced the one occasion he describes taking legal action against a critic. He raises her as the precedent when asked about a later attack by Laura Loomer: “this has happened to me once before.”[1]
His description of her is unsparing and includes her politics as the motive: she is, he says, “like so 1,000% pro-Ukraine” and “irrational” on the subject. He stresses that there was no prior contact of any kind — “I’ve never met this woman in my life. I’ve never had an exchange with her in my life. And she just attacked me.”[2][3]
What he did next he frames through a phrase used against him by an opposing lawyer in one of his divorces: “in the words of an opposing divorce attorney, John Kiriakou is a litigious prick.” He called his own lawyer, asked whether the statements were defamatory, was told they were, and answered: “Then I want to sue.”[3]
The case never reached a court. A letter went out demanding a full retraction on pain of suit, and “she retracted everything.” The terms he records are specific — “she had to pin an apology for 6 months on her Twitter” — and his summary of the episode is one word: “but I won.”[4]
Kiriakou notes in passing that she has since dropped the name under which she was known, publishing as Louise Bagshaw.[4]