Dominion sues Trump lawyer Sidney Powell for defamation

Dominion Voting Systems has filed a defamation lawsuit against lawyer Sidney Powell, seeking at least $1.3bn for Powell’s “wild accusations” that the company rigged the presidential election for Joe Biden.

“Dominion brings this action to set the record straight,” the company said in the suit filed on Friday in federal court in Washington, DC.

Powell has for weeks claimed without evidence that the election technology vendor, whose vote-counting equipment was used in several states, was part of a scheme to steal the election from President Donald Trump. Powell has been representing Trump in a series of unsuccessful lawsuits filed to contest the election outcome.

She has claimed the company was created in Venezuela to rig elections for the late leader, Hugo Chavez, and that it has the ability to switch votes.

There was no widespread fraud in the election, which a range of election officials across the country including Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr, has confirmed. Republican governors in Arizona and Georgia, key battleground states crucial to Biden’s victory, also vouched for the integrity of the elections in their states. Nearly all the legal challenges from Trump and his allies have been dismissed by judges, including two tossed out by the Supreme Court, which includes three Trump-nominated justices.

The company said “there are mountains of direct evidence that conclusively disprove Powell’s vote manipulation claims against Dominion – namely, the millions of paper ballots that were audited and recounted by bipartisan officials and volunteers in Georgia and other swing states, which confirmed that Dominion accurately counted votes on paper ballots”.

Dominion said when it formally told Powell her claims were false and asked her to retract them, she “doubled down”, using her Twitter account with more than one million followers to amplify the claims.

Eric Coomer, Dominion’s security director, already sued Powell, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and the president’s campaign for defamation after he was driven into hiding by death threats. Conservative columnists and news outlets were also named in Coomer’s lawsuit, filed in Colorado, where the company is based.

Powell did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.