premise: He is suing for $2m in New York, not Washington; and he announced his suit not by contacting the paper's editor (another disclosure: Michael Schaffer, who edits the City Paper, is an old friend and someone I respect a great deal, but <hypo> even if he weren't), but by threatening the investment company that controls the media company that owns the paper.
hypothesis: <hypo> should be "I would be writing this"