- Sidney Powell dismissed the $ 1.3 billion lawsuit filed by Dominion against her.
- Her lawyers say no reasonable person will take her allegations about Dominion seriously.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
Lawyers representing attorney Sidney Powell on Monday filed a motion to dismiss a $ 1.3 billion defamation suit from Dominion Voting Systems, arguing that her conspiracy theories about the election technology company that has ties to Venezuela and the presidential election in secret in 2020, should not have been literal.
‘Even [assuming] that each of the statements alleged in the complaint is asserted could where true or false can be proved, no reasonable person will conclude that the statements are in fact factual statements, ‘Powell’s attorneys wrote in the documentation.
Dominion filed his lawsuit against Powell in January, claiming the lawyer slandered the company when she falsely claimed that the company secretly switched votes from then-President Donald Trump to current President Joe Biden.
Powell, an appeals court attorney who also represented Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, became a national figure in November after Trump’s election loss. She denied the fact that he lost the election, falsely claiming that technology companies such as Dominion and Smartmatic, which also sued Powell, had falsified votes.
She was appointed and then fired by Trump’s legal team before filing on her own four lawsuits to block the election results. Her lawsuits, filled with spelling mistakes and bizarre claims, all failed in court.
Attorneys Lawrence J. Joseph, Howard Kleinhendler and Jesse R. Binnall filed their responses to Dominion’s lawsuit on behalf of Powell and the defense of the Republic, a fundraising vehicle she instituted while promoting her failed lawsuits.
They argued that Powell’s statements should be taken in the context of the highly publicized election, even though Trump had already lost the election at that point, and that any ‘reasonable person’ would understand that she was not making factual claims, even though she’s her claims in lawsuits in addition to the media appearance.
“This is especially one of the focal points of the complaint the press conference that Sidney Powell and others held on November 19, 2020 at the headquarters of the Republican National Committee in Washington, DC,” the attorneys wrote. “Clearly, any press conference that comes from the Republican National Committee is downright political.”
Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell.
AP Photo / Jacquelyn Martin
Powell’s lawyers say the fact that Dominion refers to Powell’s claims as strange suggests that it should never have been taken seriously in the first place.
‘Indeed, plaintiffs themselves characterize the relevant statements as’ wild accusations’ and’ foreign claims’. They are repeatedly described as’ inherently unlikely ‘and even impossible,’ Powell’s lawyers wrote. “Such characterization of the alleged defamatory statements supports the defendants’ view that reasonable persons would not accept such statements as fact but would only view them as allegations awaiting trial by the courts through the opposition process.”
Powell doubled her conspiracy theories more than a month after the election results were finalized. After Dominion sent her document custody letters warning her against a lawsuit, she called the company ‘fraudsters’ on Twitter.
Powell steadfastly refused to withdraw her claims about the company and did not respond to Insider’s repeated requests for comment.
The new filing does not address many of the points in Dominion’s original lawsuit, including that Powell filed amended documentation regarding the company’s certificate to provide election technology in Georgia. Legal experts told Insider Powell could face sanctions if his court exhibits are shown to change.
A collection of legal challenges awaits Powell after her failed lawsuits. In addition to the defamation lawsuits of Dominion and Smartmatic, Michigan officials want to deprive her and the attorneys who worked with her.