Manhattan Supreme Court Justice David Cohen has approved the addition of a previously dismissed allegation of defamation against Trump goon Rudy Giuliani to a sweeping lawsuit he is facing from Smartmatic over lies the former mayor told about the election technology company’s role in non-existent fraud during the 2020 elections.
The claims about Smartmatic are especially odd since the company wasn’t even used in the overwhelming majority of the country during that year’s contests. Giuliani has directly accused the company of involvement in some kind of scheme to rig the presidential race, also alleging that it owned Dominion Voting Systems, another more widely used election technology firm. (The two actually have no relationship other than one of competition.)
Smartmatic has also faced lies about its role in American elections from Sidney Powell, another past attorney for the ex-president who was also originally named in Smartmatic’s case. Powell claimed there was a conspiracy among a group of individuals supposedly leading the firm to develop vote-switching software and other mechanisms to control the outcome of the election. At least one of those who Powell ID’ed as supposedly involved apparently wasn’t even part of leading the company at all. A doc shared on a Twitter page associated with an appearance Powell made on Lou Dobbs claimed this individual, a businessman named Majed Khalil, was a political leader, but he had no such role.
He also sued Powell for defamation in connection to her lies. In the Smartmatic case, Cohen “agreed to revive one of the counts that Giuliani had successfully dismissed,” as Law&Crime summarized, explaining that the count alleged defamation was perpetrated by Rudy via claiming Smartmatic’s “election technology was designed and used to fix, rig and steal elections.” “Since such a defamatory statement impugns the basic integrity of SUSA’s business, ‘an action for defamation lies and injury is conclusively presumed,’” the judge said. The case from Smartmatic also targets Fox, and the network — unlike Powell — remains among those named. Smartmatic accused Fox of perpetrating a “disinformation campaign, which has damaged democracy worldwide and irreparably harmed Smartmatic and other stakeholders who contribute to modern elections.” Giuliani, Fox, and Powell are also facing defamation litigation from Dominion, and Rudy is also named in a case brought by two Georgia women who were election workers in 2020.
Giuliani accused the women of involvement in imaginary fraud, and in connection with these false claims, they faced serious threats to their safety, including an incident in which an angry group showed up at a family member’s house in search of the women hoping to make a so-called citizen’s arrest. (The two are mother and daughter.) Their lawsuit was recently upheld, moving it towards the discovery phase and an eventual trial assuming no settlement is reached in the meantime. The case contained “ample circumstantial evidence of a civil conspiracy between Giuliani and members of the Trump Campaign,” federal Judge Beryl Howell said. A civil conspiracy was specifically among the underlying allegations. Trump himself brought up the women, referencing one by name, in an infamous phone conversation with top Georgia leadership.
