Dominion Voting Systems sued Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow, Monday, accusing former President Donald Trump’s staunch ally of making false conspiracies about the 2020 election “because the lie is selling pillows”.
The $ 1.3 billion defamation lawsuit states that Lindell knew his repeated claims that the election had been “stolen” were not backed by evidence, but were held to help Trump’s supporters of the MyPillow purchase -To stimulate products.
“MyPillow’s defamatory marketing campaign – featuring promo codes like” FightforTrump “,” 45 “,” Proof “and” QAnon “- has increased MyPillow sales by 30-40% and has continued to mislead people to lie their choices in pillow purchases divert, “says Dominion’s lawsuit.
The 115-page complaint, filed in federal court in Washington, DC, cites numerous statements Lindell made about Dominion in television interviews and social media posts, as well as in a two-hour documentary that aired on conservative media in February .
Dominion legal advisor Megan Meier said in a statement that Lindell’s claim was “absolute nonsense” that “no logic or truth can be reconciled”.
“Unfortunately, countless people believed it and sent part of their hard-earned money to MyPillow,” said Meier.
The lawsuit accuses Lindell and MyPillow of defamation and fraudulent trading practices.
In a phone interview with CNBC, Lindell said, “I’m very happy that you finally filed the lawsuit.”
“My message to Dominion is that you finally did it because it’s going to be in the spotlight again,” said Lindell.
Lindell also denied Dominion’s claims that his company benefited from his efforts.
“They also say that I benefited from it, or that I used this for MyPillow to advertise and that’s not true. I lost 22 retailers,” Lindell said. “The culture for MyPillow has been canceled.”
In a video conference call with reporters late Monday morning, Dominion said that Lindell’s claim that his business suffered from his focus on the elections contradicts his own earlier statements.
The company also doubted whether Lindell actually believes its claims about election fraud and Dominion.
“He’s not the type from the infomercials,” said Meier during the conference. We’re talking about a former professional card counter … he knows what he’s doing. “
MyPillows ads, many of which feature Lindell herself prominently, air frequently on Fox News, a channel Trump has seen regularly as President. Lindell visited Trump at the White House several times, including in the days leading up to Trump’s departure from office when Lindell was photographed with notes relating to martial law.
Trump refused to allow the race after his loss to President Joe Biden and spread a number of baseless conspiracies stemming from widespread election fraud. His campaign and other allies filed dozens of lawsuits to overturn election results in key states. Most were dismissed, and none of them was able to invalidate enough votes to affect the outcome.
Lindell himself “helped spread the big lie” that the election was stolen, according to the lawsuit, by spreading the “fable” that Dominion’s algorithms were “programmed to steal Trump’s votes”.
In his full-length video claiming “absolute evidence” of election theft, Lindell claimed the fraud was only discovered because Trump’s lead on election night was so massive that the “machines broke”.
Dominion’s lawsuit states that Lindell “repeated his defamatory lies despite knowing that Dominion employees had received death threats for them.”
The lawsuit against Lindell is just the latest effort by Dominion to seek redress for the “enormous damage” caused by the “viral disinformation campaign” against the electoral society whose systems were deployed in some areas of the US during the presidential election.
Last month, Dominion sued Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, accusing him of spreading similar conspiracies about the company to “get rich financially”.
Giuliani had called the lawsuit, which also claimed more than $ 1.3 billion in punitive and compensatory damages, as “intimidating the hateful left wing to obliterate and censor the exercise of freedom of speech and the ability of lawyers.” To vigorously defend customers. “
Smartmatic, another elective equipment company targeted after Biden’s victory in a flurry of conspiracies, filed its own billions of dollars in defamation lawsuit against the owner of Fox News in early February.
Fox has filed a motion to dismiss this lawsuit.
