Government

Mike Lindell Turns Discovery Into Raging Sh*tshow In Dominion Defamation Suit

That's not how any of this works!

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US-POLITICS-ELECTION

(Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

Yesterday, the parties in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation suit against various Trumpland figures released a joint report on their proposed discovery schedule, and as might be expected when you get Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Mike Lindell in a room together, it was weirder than the bar on Tatooine.

Discovery has already hit a hiccup because superlawyer Rudy Giuliani says the FBI ate his homework. After his office was raided last spring, the feds took his devices and Rudy says his documents were not backed up, or perhaps the FBI ate the server, or maybe it was Hugo Chávez. Look, it’s all a little murky.

However, Giuliani’s position is that given that the FBI did not offer Giuliani the opportunity to make back-up copies of the electronic devices and/or cloud data it took possession of, Giuliani objects to Plaintiffs’ suggestion that he “failed” to maintain copies of the documents. These electronic files/data are no longer under Giuliani’s possession, custody, or control and he will respond to discovery requests regarding the surrounding circumstances should Plaintiff propound said discovery. Giuliani will also, to the extent possible, attempt to obtain documents responsive to Dominion’s requests from the current custodian.

(Rudy is currently participating in a privilege review of these documents, which suggests that he might have access to them. But, whatever.)

And despite all their theories about vote fraud being roundly debunked, Rudy and Sid are still engaged in poultry coitus on the subject of Dominion’s participation in a plot to steal the election. They plan to conduct discovery on the plaintiff’s “deliberate misinformation to state and federal authorities that its voting systems are stand-alone and are not connected to the internet and not subject to remote infiltration or connection,” whether the company is “owned, whether directly or indirectly, by foreign investors or state actors,” and “whether Dominion’s voting equipment was manipulated during the 2020 or other elections through malware or other manipulation of its voting equipment or voting data.”

Dominion rates the chances of a pre-trial settlement as low: “Given the devastating harm to Plaintiffs, the lack of remorse shown by Defendants, and the fact that many of them continue to double down on their lies, Plaintiffs do not believe any realistic possibility of settlement exists.” In this it is joined by its competitor, Smartmatic, as well as Hamilton Place Strategies, LLC, both of which were dragged into this as third-party defendants by Mike Lindell.

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While Powell and Giuliani insist they have “nothing to show remorse for and dispute that they have lied about anything.” They rate the chances of settlement slightly higher post-discovery when “Dominion realizes that its claims are without merit and that it has no damages legally attributable to Powell and Giuliani.”

So far, so crazy. But in the discovery conference crazy-off, Mike Lindell has got Rudy and Sid beat by a country mile, because the Pillow Man has decided that he’s just not going to participate in discovery at all.

At first, Lindell and his company MyPillow insisted that their pending appeal of the court’s denial of their motion to dismiss put them in such a different posture from the other defendants that they needed to file a separate report with Dominion. This would have been a ridiculous position if the denial of a motion to dismiss was an appealable order, which it was not.

Unsurprisingly, the DC Circuit yeeted Lindell’s stupid motion into the sun, but still he insists that he can’t participate in discovery because maybe he’s going to appeal this unappealable order up to the Supreme Court. Not for nothing, but Mike Lindell threatens to go to the Supreme Court a lot.

In an amazing coincidence, on January 13, the day after the plaintiffs dropped their first discovery request on Lindell, the Pillow Puffer decided that he had not been participating in discovery negotiations since November when the court ordered the parties to confer. And because the required pre-trial discovery under FRCP 26(f) had not taken place, discovery could not begin.

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By January 13, 2022, Plaintiffs, Powell, and Giuliani were preparing to file their final report when Plaintiffs received from Lindell and MyPillow a revised draft of the second report. Their revised draft eliminated all references to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 26(f) and Local Civil Rule 16.3(c); their position was that the Court’s order only required them “to participate in discussions about a consolidated discovery schedule,” not to hold a Rule 16 conference or actually negotiate a schedule. Lindell and MyPillow sent the draft with their revised language on January 13, 2022, the day following service of Plaintiffs’ First Set of Document Requests to Defendants on January 12, 2022. According to Lindell and MyPillow, as long as the Parties’ discussions were not a Rule 16 conference, Plaintiffs’ document requests were premature.

Lindell’s actual position here appears to be that, if you retroactively decide that it wasn’t a Rule 26(f) discovery conference, then you can refuse to comply with discovery forever.

GALAXY BRAIN.

According to the other parties, Lindell promises that “if this Court orders Lindell and MyPillow to participate in discovery before their appeal is fully resolved, they will also appeal that order” and that “they are seriously taking appeals from both orders all the way to the United States Supreme Court, if need be.” So everyone else in this case has agreed to submit this joint status report, while “Lindell and MyPillow claimed that they will file their own report, with some other name”

Or maybe the Supreme Court will bail him out and make Dominion pay him a gabillion dollars in punitive damages. You never know!

US Dominion Inc. v. Powell [Docket via Court Listener]

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

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