Dominion Voting Systems Sues MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell for $1.3 Billion

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Last updated on February 24th, 2021 at 01:47 am

Dominion Voting Systems has sued MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell for $1.3 billion, arguing that Lindell defamed the company by promoting the baseless conspiracy theory that falsely claimed Dominion conspired with foreign powers to rig voting machines to stop former President Donald Trump from winning the 2020 general election.

The company seeks more than $651 million in punitive damages as well as a further $651.7 million in compensation from Lindell. Dominion’s claim is about four times MyPillow’s annual revenue.

“As a result of the false accusations disseminated to a global audience by Lindell, his allies, and like-minded media outlets… Dominion has suffered unprecedented reputational and financial harm, and its employees’ lives have been put in danger,” the company’s lawsuit read.

The lawsuit was imminent: In January and February 2021, Dominion warned Lindell that they planned to sue him for his role in peddling election disinformation.

“You have positioned yourself as a prominent leader of the ongoing misinformation campaign,” Dominion wrote in a letter last month.

Shortly afterward, Lindell told The New York Times that he welcomed Dominion’s lawsuit.

“I would really welcome them to sue me because I have all the evidence against them,” he said. “They sent this letter a couple of weeks ago. They’re lying, they’re nervous because I have all the evidence on them.”

Last month, Dominion filed a defamation lawsuit against lawyer Sidney Powell for pushing blatantly false claims about the election. Dominion says it has been the victim of a “viral disinformation campaign” that Powell mounted “to financially enrich herself, to raise her public profile, and to ingratiate herself to Donald Trump.”

“We feel that it’s important for the entire electoral process,” Dominion CEO John Poulos told The Washington Post, adding that he would prefer the case go to trial so the facts around the 2020 election can be presented. “The allegations, I know they were lobbed against us . . . but the impacts go so far beyond us.”

Dominion has also sued Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani Its lawsuit cites more than 50 statements Giuliani “made at legislative hearings, on Twitter, on his podcast and in the conservative news media, where he spun a fictitious narrative of a plot by one of the biggest voting machine manufacturers in the country to flip votes to President Biden,” according to The New York Times.