Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell on Monday.
The company alleged that the Trump loyalist’s embrace of the former president’s election fraud falsehoods not only worked to Lindell’s advantage financially and politically, but also ruined the reputation the voting technology company and endangered its employees’ safety.
Upon announcing its lawsuit against Lindell, Dominion CEO John Poulos swiped at the MyPillow CEO for disregarding Dominion’s “repeated warnings and efforts to share the facts with him.” Poulos said that Lindell choosing to “maliciously spread false claims” shows that the MyPillow CEO has tarnished the company’s reputation and the safety of its employees and customers.
“Moreover, Mr. Lindell’s lies have undermined trust in American democracy and tarnished the hard work of local election officials,” Poulos said. “No amount of money can repair the damage that’s been done by these lies, which are easily disproved. Hundreds of documented audits and recounts have proven that Dominion machines accurately counted votes. We look forward to proving these facts in a court of law.”
Dominion’s complaint, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., details how Lindell’s parroting of Trump’s bogus election fraud claims, which included false allegations that Dominion played into a “stolen” election, worked to the MyPillow CEO’s political advantage amid speculation that Lindell is mulling a bid for Minnesota governor.
“After hitting the jackpot with Donald Trump’s endorsement for MyPillow and after a million-dollar bet on Fox News ads had paid out handsome returns, Michael Lindell exploited another chance to boost sales: marketing MyPillow to people who would tune in and attend rallies to hear Lindell tell the “Big Lie” that Dominion had stolen the 2020 election,” the complaint reads. The complaint claimed that Lindell’s bogus claims have increased MyPillow sales by 30-40% and “continues duping people into redirecting their election-lie outrage into pillow purchases.”
The complaint noted that Dominion wrote to Lindell on several occasions and “put him on formal written notice of the facts” while informing the MyPillow CEO that Dominion employees were receiving death threats because of the lies he peddled.
“Instead of retracting his lies, Lindell—a multimillionaire with a nearly unlimited ability to broadcast his preferred messages on conservative media—whined that he was being ‘censored’ and ‘attacked’ and produced a ‘docu-movie’ featuring shady characters and fake documents sourced from dark corners of the internet,” the complaint said.
Going into further detail of the “unprecedented reputational and financial harm” that Dominion has suffered in light of false accusations waged by Lindell, alongside his allies who “acted in concert to promote a false preconceived narrative about the 2020 election,” the complaint said the company has spent more than $565,000 on private security for the protection of its people and has been forced to incur expenses of more than $1,170,000 as a “direct result of the viral disinformation campaign.”
Furthermore, the complaint said that Dominion has “suffered harm nationwide,” citing legislators in Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, and Pennsylvania stating their intent to review its contracts with the company due to external pressure since “the viral disinformation campaign began.”
The complaint argued that Lindell gave Dominion no choice but to sue.
“After Dominion repeatedly put Lindell on formal written notice of specific facts and evidence disproving his false claims, and let him know that the lies were putting people’s lives in danger, Lindell repeated his lies and said, ‘I welcome them to come after me because I’ve got all the evidence and then they’ll finally see it,’ and ‘I dare Dominion to sue me, because then it will get out faster,'” the complaint reads.
The complaint concludes that Lindell will continue to wage false claims that have already “irreparably damaged Dominion” unless the court intervenes, and called for a trial by jury.
“Dominion is entitled to permanent injunctive relief requiring the removal of all the Defendants’ statements that are determined to be false and defamatory and enjoining the Defendants from repeating such statements or engaging in any further deceptive trade practices relating to Dominion,” the complaint reads. “Dominion is entitled to recover from Defendants its costs of litigation, including reasonable attorneys’ fees.”
Dominion has also sued erstwhile Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.
2 22 21 Dominion v My Pillo… by Law&Crime
Correction: This post originally misstated other lawsuits Dominion has filed against Trumpworld figures.
