Dominion Voting Systems on Monday filed a lawsuit towards Rudy Giuliani, alleging former President Donald Trump’s private lawyer defamed the voting software program firm with incessant lies about election fraud.
The 107-page lawsuit, first reported by The New York Times, was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and accuses Giuliani of getting “manufactured and disseminated” false claims that Dominion voting machines threw out or modified votes for Trump.
This “Big Lie” of a stolen election “deceived millions of people into believing Dominion had stolen their votes and fixed the election,” the lawsuit alleged.
Giuliani “cashed in” on these defamatory claims by reportedly looking for $20,000 a day from the Trump marketing campaign and internet hosting a podcast the place he repeatedly peddled the lies, the lawsuit contended.
“Even after the United States Capitol had been stormed by rioters who had been deceived by Giuliani and his allies, Giuliani shirked responsibility for the consequences of his words and repeated the Big Lie,” the lawsuit acknowledged.
Dominion, headquartered in Denver and Toronto, is looking for $1.3 billion in damages.
Giuliani didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Dominion has additionally taken authorized actions towards different Trump allies who helped the ex-president peddle outrageous and baseless conspiracy theories involving the corporate.
Earlier this month, Dominion sued former Trump marketing campaign lawyer Sidney Powell for $1.3 billion over her accusations that the corporate’s machines rigged the election in favor of President Joe Biden.
Dominion despatched a stop and desist letter to MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a Trump confidante, ordering him to “preserve and retain all documents relating to Dominion and your smear campaign against the company” and promised “imminent” litigation.
In December, a Dominion employee filed lawsuits towards a number of events who pushed the stolen election lie, together with Trump and conservative media retailers OAN and Newsmax, claiming the falsehoods led to loss of life threats.
One of the lies unfold by Giuliani and different Trump allies makes the demonstrably false declare that Dominion was based in Venezuela to rig elections in favor of dictator Hugo Chávez. In reality, Dominion was based in 2002 “in John Poulos’s basement in Toronto to help blind people vote on paper ballots,” Dominion acknowledged in its lawsuit.
Dominion machines had been utilized in at the least 24 states throughout the 2020 election, together with in states the place Trump received.
Dozens of distinguished attorneys in New York state have known as for Giuliani’s censure for his function in inspiring the Jan. 6 insurrectionist mob assault towards the Capitol. The chairman of the New York state Senate judiciary committee known as for the state court docket system to disbar Giuliani.
On Thursday, a nationwide group of attorneys filed a prolonged ethics grievance towards Giuliani that alleged he knowingly lied in regards to the election. The nonpartisan group Lawyers Defending American Democracy urged the state of New York to research Giuliani’s actions and droop his legislation license within the meantime.
Calling all HuffPost superfans!
Sign up for membership to turn into a founding member and assist form HuffPost’s subsequent chapter
