Government

Get Out Your Checkbook, Sidney Powell! Dominion Demands $1.3B In Defamation Suit

F— around and find out!

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(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Dominion Voting Systems filed a defamation suit against “Kraken” lawyer Sidney Powell yesterday in the U.S. District Court for D.C. seeking $1.3 billion in damages for false statements which damaged the company’s reputation and put its employees in physical danger, ensuring that we will be publicly litigating the outcome of the 2020 election for the conceivable future.

On the plus side, we can finally quit litigating the 2016 election so… silver lining!

“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,” the complaint begins. All of these statements are provably false, as are many other claims Powell made both in an out of court.

For instance, one exhibit entered into the Georgia Kraken suit purported to be an undated and unsigned certification of compliance for Dominion machines. In fact, the date and signature were simply cropped out of the image Powell submitted to the court.

The complaint describes Powell’s “expert witnesses” as “a motley crew of conspiracy theorists, con artists, armchair ‘experts,’ and anonymous sources who were judicially determined to be ‘wholly unreliable,'” and accuses Powell of deliberately hiding that fact from the court and the public.

One of Powell’s wholly unreliable sources was a purported “military intelligence expert” who has now admitted that he never actually worked in military intelligence, that the declaration Powell’s clerks wrote for him to sign is “misleading,” and that he “was trying to backtrack” on it. After he was discredited, Powell pivoted by presenting his declaration as having been written by a different anonymous source.

Sponsored

That would be the infamous “Spider,” whom Powell described as an experienced hacker with extensive military intelligence experience whose identity had to be redacted from opposing counsel to protect his life and safety. In fact, he was a mechanic who washed out of the military years ago. Also, Sidney Powell is bad at REDACTION.

Similarly, Powell made repeated claims, both personally and via another anonymous “witness,” blurring the distinction between Dominion and its direct competitor Smartmatic and alleging that Smartmatic’s software is “in the DNA” of every voting machine. As if anthropomorphizing computer code was a logical explanation for eliding the two competitor companies into one election-rigging behemoth.

All of which suggests, according to the complaint, that Powell knew her claims were false and deliberately hid the evidence of that falsity from the court and the public as she continued to accuse Dominion of conspiring with Biden’s supporters to steal the election.

Moreover, the company alleges, she continued to knowingly make these false claims as part of a scheme to enrich herself and raise her own profile through book sales and donations to her “charity” Defending the Republic, a co-defendant in this case whose non-profit status is, ummm, unclear.

Sponsored

Powell has been soliciting donations to Defending the Republic since November, despite the fact that it was apparently not incorporated until December, and despite its undefined IRS status.

As alleged in detail above, despite knowing that her defamatory falsehoods about Dominion were deceptive, Powell willfully made them in the course of her business as a media figure, author, and attorney because she could derive—and did in fact derive—both direct and indirect financial benefits from making those false statements. For example, she used her defamatory falsehoods about Dominion to solicit funds to her fundraising website. She also used the defamatory accusations to garner media attention and raise her public profile, which sold additional copies of her book and drummed up additional potential clients for Powell.

Dominion’s reputation harm is obvious to anyone who watched Fox News in the past two months.

Similarly, it had to expend hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra security after receiving multiple threats like this voicemail.

You’re all fucking dead, You’re all fucking dead. We’re bringing back the firing squad and you fuckers are all dead, everybody involved up against the wall you motherfuckers. We’re gonna have a fucking lottery to fucking give people a chance to shoot you motherfuckers you fucking wait you cocksuckers you commie pieces of shit. We’re going to fucking kill you all you motherfuckers. After a fair trial of course you pieces of shit. The American people are fucking coming for you this is the end of your fucking line guys your fucking days are numbered you better enjoy your Thanksgiving because you’ll never see another one you fucking cocksuckers. You will be gone soon.

It seems highly unlikely that Powell will be able to make Dominion whole with a ten-figure payout, even assuming it could prove that she knowingly defamed the company. But the publicity from the suit itself may go some way to setting the public record straight and redeeming Dominion’s tattered reputation.

Powell’s attorney, the infamous Lin Wood, has been booted off Twitter for aggravated batshittery. But Powell herself seems hot to trot on this case.

Giddyup!

Complaint [US Dominion Inc v. Sidney Powell, No. 1:21-cv-00040 (D. D. C. Jan. 8, 2021)]

Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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