Photographer: Al Drago / Bloomberg
Photographer: Al Drago / Bloomberg
Former Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell was sued for defamation by the voting machine company, which repeatedly placed her at the center of a vast and unfounded election conspiracy that claimed she changed votes to favor the President-elect Joe Biden.
The complaint filed Friday by Dominion Voting Systems Inc. demands $ 1.3 billion from Powell, who filed numerous failed court cases seeking to overturn election results. The Trump campaign abandoned her shortly after a Nov. 19 press conference in which she claimed that agents from Iran and China were infiltrating Dominion voting machines to help Biden and that the software had ties to Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez, who died in 2013..
“Powell’s savage accusations are demonstrably false,” said the Toronto- and Denver-based company. “Acting in concert with allies and the media who were determined to promote a false preconceived narrative about the 2020 election, Powell launched a viral disinformation campaign about Dominion that reached millions and caused enormous damage to Dominion “.
The case could be the first of numerous lawsuits against individuals and the media accused of shattering the company’s reputation by repeating or spreading wild conspiracy theories to explain President Donald Trump’s failed bid for a second term. Trump’s top election lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, Fox News, and the White House itself were among those who received letters from Dominion lawyers in December.
Powell did not immediately respond to any comment search messages.
Defending the Republic Inc., based in Dallas, is also named defendant in the lawsuit. Powell has a website, defendingtherepublic.org, in which he continues to solicit donations for his work “to defend and protect the integrity of elections in the United States“.
Powell claimed Dominion carried out the alleged scam with the help of thousands of workers in the corrupt Democratic election. These allegations were repeated in several lawsuits Powell filed regardless of the campaign challenging election results in battlefield states. He described his litigation as “liberating the Kraken,” a reference to a mythical sea monster unleashed by Zeus in the 1981 fantasy film “Clash of the Titans.” The judges quickly rejected his claims for lack of credible evidence.
Powell also frequently discussed his theories about Dominion during television interviews with conservative media, promising large amounts of evidence that never materialized.
(Updates with claim details.)