(Bloomberg) -- A request to depose Mark Zuckerberg as part of Washington, D.C.’s data-privacy lawsuit against Facebook drew a blistering denial from the judge in the case.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Maurice A. Ross said Tuesday it wasn’t necessary for district Attorney General Karl Racine to question the Meta Platforms Inc. chief executive officer to help consumers who were allegedly harmed by the social-media company’s handling of user data and said the request “smacks of bad faith.”

“You want to change this from a case about Facebook to a case about Mr. Zuckerberg,” Ross said Tuesday to a lawyer for Racine’s office during a court hearing.

The District of Columbia sued Facebook in 2018 over its handling of user data, exemplified by a privacy breach in which the personal information of millions of Americans was transferred to Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm hired by former president Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. 

Racine’s move to add Zuckerberg to the suit in October was one of the first times a law enforcement official has personally targeted the Facebook founder, but the judge questioned its relevance.

The judge said it was “frankly annoying” that the dispute had popped up after the pre-trial period for gathering evidence had already expired. He questioned how deposing Zuckerberg would improve the outcome for D.C. consumers who were most interested in receiving money damages for data-privacy violations.

Ross cited a line from the 1996 film “Jerry Maguire” to criticize Racine’s focus on Zuckerberg. “Most consumers are like Cuba Gooding -- they’re like ‘show me the money,” the judge said. “They don’t care what happens to Zuckerberg.” 

Read More: Zuckerberg Targeted by D.C. Attorney General in Privacy Suit

(Updates with additional detail from hearing and background.)

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