Dominion threatens defamation lawsuit over Sidney Powell's election conspiracy theories: 'You are not entitled to your own facts'
- Dominion Voting Systems has sent a letter to the lawyer Sidney Powell threatening to sue her for defamation if she does not retract her baseless claims about the company.
- Powell, who was kicked off the Trump campaign's legal team, has filed numerous lawsuits seeking to overturn the results of the presidential election.
- Her lawsuits and public statements are premised on a conspiracy theory that Dominion has secret ties to foreign governments and flipped votes from President Donald Trump to President-elect Joe Biden.
- "Dominion has never provided machines or any of its software or technology to Venezuela, nor has it ever participated in any elections to Venezuela," the letter, obtained by Insider, said. "It did not receive $400 million from the Chinese in the weeks before the 2020 election. It has no ties to the Chinese government, the Venezuelan government, George Soros, Bigfoot, or the Loch Ness Monster."
Dominion Voting Systems is demanding that the lawyer Sidney Powell retract her conspiracy theories about the presidential election, claiming they are defamatory and threatening to take her to court if she refuses.
"Your reckless disinformation campaign is predicated on lies that have endangered Dominion's business and the lives of its employees," the company said in a letter.
The letter, obtained by Insider, also focuses on the Trump campaign and right-wing media outlets like Fox News, Newsmax, and "The Rush Limbaugh Show." It said Powell made "wild, knowingly baseless, and false accusations" on "behalf of the Trump Campaign as part of a coordinated media circus and fundraising scheme."
Powell previously worked on the Trump campaign's legal team alongside Rudy Giuliani, filing lawsuits seeking to overturn the presidential-election results.
She claimed that Dominion, which offers election machines across the country, had secret ties to the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013, and developed technology that flipped votes from President Donald Trump to President-elect Joe Biden.
"Dominion has never provided machines or any of its software or technology to Venezuela, nor has it ever participated in ant elections to Venezuela," the letter said. "It did not receive $400 million from the Chinese in the weeks before the 2020 election. It has no ties to the Chinese government, the Venezuelan government, George Soros, Bigfoot, or the Loch Ness Monster."
She's since been kicked off the team and has filed four federal lawsuits on her own.
All of them have failed. Not a single lawsuit the Trump campaign or Trump's allies have brought seeking to overturn the election results has succeeded.
Powell has also raised money for a "Legal Defense Fund" for the lawsuits. Giuliani has continued to give media interviews peddling many of the same baseless claims Powell made while she worked with the Trump campaign.
Dominion's letter was written by Clare Locke, a law firm specializing in defamation lawsuits.
Powell didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Dominion rejected Powell's Venezuela conspiracy theory
According to Powell, Dominion has secret ties to one of its competitors in the voting-technology industry, Smartmatic.
Both Dominion and Smartmatic previously released statements debunking her claims.
Earlier this week, Smartmatic sent a cease-and-desist letter to Fox News, which was also obtained by Insider. The network's hosts have promulgated the same conspiracy theories on their own, as well as hosted Powell and Giuliani, who espouse them on air.
Smartmatic did indeed offer election technology to Venezuela more than a decade ago. It denounced Chavez's administration after officials announced results that differed from what Smartmatic software found, and then ceased working in the country.
In its letter, Dominion reiterated it has no ties to Venezuela and that its technology has been certified by the US Election Assistance Commission, which regulates election technology, and individual states.
"Far from being created to rig elections for a now-deceased Venezuelan dictator, Dominion's voting systems are certified under standards promulgated by the US Election Assistance Commission, reviewed and tested by independent testing laboratories accredited by the EAC, and were designed to be auditable and include a paper ballot backup to verify results," it said.
The letter pointed to one exhibit filed by Powell in her lawsuit that appears to have been altered to make it seem as if the company wasn't certified in Georgia, which it is. Legal-ethics experts previously told Insider that if such an alteration was intentional, it could lead to Powell's disbarment.
Powell has damaged Dominion's bipartisan reputation, the company says
Dominion has had contracts from states and counties controlled by both Democrats and Republicans for years. It said Powell's campaign against Dominion reduced trust in it among the Republican Party and was therefore damaging to its business.
"While you are entitled to your own opinions, Ms. Powell, you are not entitled to your own facts," the letter said.
Polls show that about three-quarters of Republicans do not believe the 2020 presidential election was fair. Those followed weeks of attacks on the integrity of the election from Republican officials, many of whom cite the baseless claims made in Powell's lawsuits.
The Dominion letter refers to numerous baseless statements Powell has made to conservative media outlets. She's said she has several recordings of Dominion employees admitting to wrongdoing but has released no evidence. Dominion says its employees have received death threats as a result of her claims.
"As I have testified under oath, Dominion has recently been thrust into the national spotlight as part of a dangerous and reckless disinformation campaign aimed at sowing doubt and confusion over the 2020 presidential election," John Poulos, the CEO of Dominion Voting Systems, said in a statement. "The people making these baseless claims surely know they are lies, and these lies have consequences."
Read Dominion's letter to Sidney Powell below:
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