On Friday, Dominion released the Kraken on former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell. For months, Powell has made numerous conspiratorial allegations against the voting machine manufacturer — in public and in court. Now, Dominion is accusing Powell of defamation and seeking $US1.3 ($2) billion in damages.
The lawsuit was filed on Friday morning in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and names Powell as well as an organisation she allegedly founded, Defending the Republic, as defendants. According to Dominion, many statements by Powell have “caused unprecedented harm” to the company. Specifically, the lawsuit says that “during a Washington, D.C. press conference, a Georgia political rally, and a media blitz, Powell falsely claimed that Dominion had rigged the election, that Dominion was created in Venezuela to rig elections for Hugo Chávez, and that Dominion bribed Georgia officials for a no-bid contract.”
Following Powell’s baseless claims of Dominion being in cahoots with Venezuela, she was officially removed from the Trump legal team but since then has reportedly been at the White House for meetings with the president on many occasions.
In its lawsuit, Dominion says that after it sent Powell notice explaining that her claims were false and she was motivating death threats against Dominion staff, “Powell doubled down.” Rather than retracting her claims, she tweeted that she hadn’t seen the letter but she would be “retracting nothing” because “[w]e have #evidence” and “They are #fraud masters!” According to the suit, Powell tagged her allies, including President Trump, “To ensure that her tweet would be published to the largest possible audience and inflict maximum harm on Dominion.”
Dominion told the court that “there are mountains of direct evidence that conclusively disprove Powell’s vote manipulation claims,” because “[i]ts systems are certified under standards promulgated by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (“EAC”), reviewed and tested by independent testing laboratories accredited by the EAC, and were designed to be auditable and include a paper ballot backup to verify results.”
In coordination with President Trump and his attorney Rudy Guiliani, Powell has played a prominent role in spreading stories of election fraud that have been slapped down in at least 61 lawsuits in various U.S. courts. Those conspiracy theories played a prominent role in Trump supporters’ justifications for the Wednesday attack on Capitol Hill as a joint session of Congress tried to certify the 2020 election results. So far, in the aftermath of the attack, we’ve learned that at least one government laptop was stolen in the attack, offices were ransacked, 56 police officers were injured, two hospitalized, one died, three members of the public died due to medical emergencies, and one person at the scene died from a gunshot wound. The FBI claims that two pipe bombs were found and it is seeking information on suspects.
This is likely just the beginning of Dominion’s legal efforts against associates of Trump who’ve spread election fraud claims. In December, the company reportedly sent 21 cease and desist letters to at least 11 individuals including Giuliani, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity. In December, a Dominion worker personally sued Powell and the Trump Campaign for defamation over claims that the worker conspired with “antifa” to change votes in favour of Joe Biden. And amidst all of this, the city of Detroit has asked a federal judge to initiate disbarment proceedings for Powell.
A judgment in Dominion’s favour may not change the minds of Powell’s target audience, but for the attorney herself, a billion-dollar judgment would be a firm collision with reality.
You can read the full lawsuit embedded below.