Former President Donald Trump’s allegations of election fraud have landed his lawyer Rudy Giuliani into trouble as a voting machine manufacturer company filed a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against him.
The Denver-based company, Dominion Voting Systems Inc, filed has already filed a lawsuit against pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, whom the company also accused of spreading false conspiracy theories about the election that Trump lost.
A senior Dominion employee, Eric Coomer, also filed a defamation lawsuit against the Trump campaign, saying he had to go into hiding because of death threats from Trump supporters.
Giuliani said in a statement that Dominion’s lawsuit was intended to intimidate others from exercising their free speech rights.
Giuliani said that he may file a countersuit against the company for violating his rights.
Trump and his allies spent two months denying his defeat, and claiming without evidence that it was the result of widespread voter fraud.
Dominion is seeking damages from the former New York City mayor, alleging in the lawsuit that “he and his allies manufactured and disseminated the ‘Big Lie,’ which foreseeably went viral and deceived millions of people into believing that Dominion had stolen their votes and fixed the election.”
The company said it filed the lawsuit “to set the record straight” and to “stand up for itself, its employees, and the electoral process.”
A group of prominent attorneys last week asked New York’s judiciary to suspend Giuliani’s license because he made false claims and for urging Trump’s supporters to engage in “trial by combat” shortly before they stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6.
Dominion said that it has spent $565,000 on private security to protect its employees, who are facing harassment and death threats.
“Giuliani’s statements,” the lawsuit stated, “were calculated to — and did in fact — provoke outrage and cause Dominion enormous harm.”
Founded in 2002, Dominion is a major US manufacturer of voting machines. More than two dozen states used its machines during the 2020 election.
