Dominion Voting Systems, one of the largest US electoral equipment manufacturers and the subject of numerous inconsistent conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, sued attorney Sidney Powell, who pressured President Donald Trump’s attempts to override election results for defamation .
“Powell falsely claimed that Dominion rigged the election, that Dominion was created in Venezuela to rig Hugo Chávez’s elections and that Dominion bribed Georgia officials for a non-bidding contract,” the suit said.
Powell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Dominion is seeking compensation of more than $ 1.3 billion, saying it has spent millions on security for its employees and on damage to its reputation, and is at risk of losing future business.
A Dominion employee who has been harassed by Trump supporters has already sued Powell and others. In December, Dominion sent cease-and-desist letters to some conservative media outlets that put pressure on electoral theories, including Fox News and OAN, which prompted them to back down on their claims.
Allegations of electoral fraud were largely rejected.
Election experts uniformly declared that the 2020 election was conducted fairly. A union of all the top federal and state officials who oversaw the election declared him “the safest in American history”. Election security experts, many of whom popularized the notion of hacking voting machines to raise awareness of vulnerabilities in electoral systems, found that “In all cases that we are aware of, these allegations have not been substantiated or are technically inconsistent.”
This did not stop Trump and his supporters from making a variety of allegations without evidence that the election was stolen. Some of the most widespread demands were directed at Dominion, which provided voting systems for 28 states.
Powell, who appeared with Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani, in his attempts to challenge the election results, consistently promoted a series of wild conspiracy theories that were adopted by QAnon’s followers, many of which Trump also promoted.
Powell promised big and didn’t deliver, insisting that she would “release the kraken”, referring to a bombastic revelation about the electoral conspiracy that would result in Trump’s victory in the elections after losing. Despite a series of frustrated lawsuits that never happened.
Matt Masterson, senior electoral security adviser to the United States Cyber Security and Infrastructure Agency until he left office in December, praised the Dominion process as a way to resist deliberate falsehoods about the integrity of the election.
“There is no truth in any of the allegations about Dominion, and we know that because Georgia came back and counted all the ballots, and it was consistent,” said Masterson in a phone call.
“The concern here is that the justice system was used as a vehicle for disinformation,” said Masterson. “So, I’m happy to see Dominion respond back, because this is the path they take.”
This is a developing story. Please check again for updates.