ATLANTA — Dominion Voting Systems has filed a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. The lawsuit is rooted in the false claims of election fraud and other disinformation Giuliani spread and elevated following Trump’s November loss.
Georgia is mentioned 41 times in the federal lawsuit, filed in the Washington, D.C., U.S. District Court on Monday morning. Dominion Voting references most of the unsubstantiated fraud claims Giuliani peddled during subcommittee hearings at the state Capitol last month, during Georgia visits, across social media and in the hours following the election.
It also references Trump’s call to Georgia’s secretary of state earlier this month, in which Trump demanded the state “find” more than 11,000 votes in order for him to win the state. Certified election results following multiple ballot counts confirmed Trump lost the state.
That included a signature match audit of absentee ballots in Cobb County, where then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows made a surprise visit to ask questions about the investigation. Conducted by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the audit found no evidence of fraud.
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Among the Georgia references is the state’s hand count of November ballots that confirmed Dominion machines’ accuracy. Even after that unprecedented audit, Giuliani turned to his weekly radio show and podcast to push conspiracies that Dominion interfered with the Georgia vote, the suit outlines. His then-legal partner, attorney Sidney Powell, claimed the company had bribed Georgia leaders, including Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp. Powell is at the center of a separate recently filed Dominion defamation lawsuit.
Dominion also outlined Giuliani’s social media posts elevating false fraud claims that targeted Georgia and Kemp. The company calculated Giuliani’s false Twitter claims alone reached more than 331 million accounts, electronically covering the entire U.S. population.
Andrew Fleischman, an appeals attorney with Sandy Springs-based Ross and Pines, noted the most difficult part of this case is proving malice. But Giuliani’s refusal to take the claims to court will likely work against him, leaving little room for dismissal attempts.
“If Rudy Giuliani is saying stuff on his podcast, on his YouTube Channel in order to make money, but he’s not willing to say that stuff in a lawsuit where he can be sanctioned for making false claims or lose his bar license, that could be evidence that he actually knew what he was saying was false,” Fleischman said.
Fleischman also explained that Grand Old Party lawmakers and skeptics who have criticized the lack of court evidence review because dozens of cases were dismissed on standing should be relieved to see this defamation case play out. It will require Giuliani to produce the documentation and proof he claimed to have firsthand knowledge about via social media posts and hearing testimony. It will also go before a jury.
“People might be willing to believe the Supreme Court is a deep state. That 60 judges were the deep state, that we’re all inclined to rule against the president no matter what. But if you’re drawing from a community of people (jurors), that’s gotta hold some weight,” Fleischman said.
This second lawsuit was filed on the day the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General confirmed it launched an investigation into whether former or current DOJ officials attempted to overturn presidential results. The confirmation comes after multiple national reports outlined Trump’s alleged attempt to get DOJ officials to change Georgia’s results.
Cox Media Group
