According to an attorney for the company, the voting and election technology firm Dominion Voting Systems is still considering whether to file a defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump for his lies about the company’s role in the 2020 presidential election. Trump and others have falsely claimed that Dominion was involved in non-existent rigging of the election on behalf of Joe Biden, and Dominion has already filed a spate of other defamation lawsuits, including new cases against the right-wing media outlets Newsmax and One America News Network. Previous targets for Dominion’s defamation lawsuits also include longtime Trump ally Rudy Giuliani.
Dominion Voting Systems is still weighing whether to bring a defamation lawsuit against Trump over election conspiracy theories, an attorney for the company says.https://t.co/S7I8OMQNlu
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 12, 2021
On Tuesday, Dominion attorney Stephen Shackelford commented as follows:
‘Dominion continues to take an evidence-based approach to investigating other participants in the campaign of lies dating all the way back to last November.’
Election lies involving Dominion helped inspire the January riot at the Capitol, at which time supporters of then-President Donald Trump attempted to forcibly stop the formal certification by Congress of Joe Biden’s election victory. Trump has personally propagated lies against Dominion in particular, and he even ranted against the company during the speech that he delivered at an outdoor rally in D.C. on the day of the riot. At one point, Trump also claimed on Twitter — referencing One America News in the process — that “millions” of his votes had been deleted across the country by Dominion. There is not and has never been any legitimate evidence in support of this idea.
Dominion has suffered in the wake of these lies. Individuals affiliated with the company have been threatened, and recently, someone even threw a brick through a window at one of the company’s offices. Asked directly about the possibility of suing Trump, Shackelford added that the company is “still exploring options as to how to hold other participants in the campaign of lies against Dominion to account.”
Shackelford also commented as follows, referencing the length of time between last year’s election and the company’s latest defamation lawsuits:
‘Dominion has been unfortunately forced to spend a considerable amount of time and money carefully researching and managing the lawsuits… We do our due diligence and we file when we’re ready. We file these lawsuits today to hold these particular defendants accountable as Dominion continues to suffer from these lies.’
Trump and certain allies of his have yet to acknowledge the falsity of their unhinged claims about the integrity of last year’s election, and there’s no particular indication that they’ll ever make such an acknowledgement.
