In Little Saigon, politics can get personal.
Case in point: Rose Bui, the wife of state Assembly candidate Ted Bui, has lodged a defamation complaint against Trust Media Network – a Vietnamese-language YouTube program hosted by activists Ky Ngo and Nam Quan Nguyen.
The legal claim, filed May 3 in Orange County Superior Court, alleges that Trust Media maliciously and erroneously reported that Rose Bui’s father served as a high-ranking member of the military in communist Vietnam.
The allegation could have political implications. Rose Bui’s husband, Fountain Valley council member Ted Bui, is one of five candidates running to represent the 70th Assembly District, and any connection to communism can be politically devastating in Little Saigon, where many older Vietnamese-American voters fled communist persecution before arriving in the United States.
One of Bui’s opponents in the race for AD-70 is Westminster Mayor Tri Ta. Two years ago, Ta backed Trust Media’s Nguyen in Nguyen’s unsuccessful run for a seat on the Westminster council. Recently, Ta has been a regular on Trust Media talk shows, where Nguyen and co-host Ngo express their support for him.
Rose Bui’s lawsuit states that in mid-February, Nguyen and Ngo falsely asserted that Bui is “the daughter of a commander of the Communist regime.”
According to the suit, “The bloggers published several photos of an older man in a communist uniform,” wrongly identifying him as Bui’s father.
In fact, the claim says Rose Bui’s father was a civil engineer who “never participated in the military.”
Rancho Santa Fe attorney Hoyt Hart, who is representing Bui, said that the “communist” label can be a powerful tactic in the Little Saigon community.
“If you want to condemn someone, you play the ‘C card,’” Hart said. “That’s why it’s tossed around so loosely.”
Rose Bui, herself an attorney, declined to comment for this story.
In a telephone interview, Trust Media’s Nguyen said he has not yet seen the lawsuit but stands by his program’s reporting, which was based on an anonymous source.
“A trusted source sent us that information,” Nguyen said.
It’s unclear if Nguyen, Ngo or anyone from Trust Media tried to confirm the allegation or reach out to Rose Bui for comment before the story was aired.
“So far, we believe it to be true,” Nguyen said. “But Mrs. Bui has the right to do whatever she wants to do about it. This is the United States. We will take this to court.”
The talk show made other allegations about both Buis.
“Defendants further claimed that during the 2022 Tet Parade, Rose (Bui) and several friends all wore red with yellow hats, just like the the communist regime’s flag, and danced and played communist music all along Bolsa Avenue,” the lawsuit reads. “The statements are false. Rose wore a red dress, symbolic of the Lunar New Year. The music played was Vietnamese pop music.”
On the same talk show, Ngo and Nguyen said that Ted Bui’s relatives “were all communists,” the complaint alleges.
Ted Bui declined to weigh in. “My wife is a tough attorney and this is a matter that she will have to deal with,” he wrote in an email.
Hart, Rose Bui’s attorney, said that charges of communist sympathies in Little Saigon can “put people at physical risk.”
“Basically, this affects (Bui’s) reputation and makes her unsafe,” Hart said. “I’ve had clients pushed around in public, rocks thrown through their windows.”
Hart has handled several cases involving threats and demonstrations resulting from people being labeled as communists or sympathetic to communism, and the lawsuit filed by Rose Bui is not Hart’s first conflict with Ngo.
Almost 15 years ago, Hart represented Nguoi Viet, the largest Vietnamese daily published outside Vietnam, after Ngo led noisy protests outside the newspaper’s Westminster office that lasted for months. The newspaper had published a photo of a pedicurist’s foot-washing basin decorated in red and yellow, colors that also represent the flag of communist Vietnam.
In 2009, a jury found Ngo and two other organizers liable for trespassing and causing a nuisance.
The 90-minute Trust Media broadcast that prompted Bui’s lawsuit includes other accusations directed at local politicians – some of the charges bordering on fantastical.
For instance, Ngo and Nguyen claimed that Westminster Council members Kimberly Ho and Carlos Manzo wanted to shut down a Buddhist temple and imprison its abbot. Ngo claimed that Ho planned to “build a Mormon temple or a brothel” on the site.
The report also claimed that Manzo is so “jealous and racist” that he scratched out Ta’s title of “mayor” from a statue of Vietnamese hero General Tran Hung Dao.
While serving together on the Westminster City Council, Ho, Manzo and Councilman Tai Do have teamed up to vote against some of Ta’s favored projects, including a recent proposal to redevelop City Hall.
In March, the three council members approved a resolution, authored by Do, that condemns Vietnamese-language media outlets that promote “fake news.”
“I am so glad Mrs. Bui has come forward to debunk the fake news that shamed her father,” Do said. “It takes courage.”
The suit says any monetary damages sought by Rose Bui from Trust Media are “to be determined at trial.”
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