Donald Trump lost the presidential election to Joe Biden in November, and in a few short days, he’ll be out of a job in Washington. But the fallout from that defeat, and the various Trump tantrums that have undermined the public faith in the election process and those that help carry it out, will be felt for years to come.
Trump’s insistence to openly defy the results of the election have been made manifest in many ways, the latest of which is Trump caught on tape asking a Georgia election official to “find” votes for him and somehow undo his loss. And now there apparently will be new lawsuits, but this time from the people who make election equipment and have been harassed with claims they somehow stole the election from Trump.
According to an Axios report on Monday, conspiracy-fueled lawyer Sidney Powell is reportedly the target of a defamation lawsuit over baseless claims that Dominion somehow conspired against Trump to cause him to lose the election. Dominion CEO John Poulos spoke on an Axios podcast on Monday about the suit, and the report says that the company hasn’t ruled out a lawsuit against Trump himself:
Between the lines: Dominion, which makes the voting machines used in Georgia and elsewhere, has been the subject of baseless accusations of malfeasance during last November’s elections.
Trump, during his leaked call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, called the U.S.-based company “corrupt” and had to be corrected by Raffensperger after claiming machines had been recently removed and/or altered by Dominion employees.
Dominion says that the rhetorical barrage has led to death threats against its employees, including one who remains unable to return to his home.
Though it does feel like it a lot these days, you just can’t say anything inflammatory you want these days, especially if it’s not true. And the wild theories people have put forth about Dominion, even on television channels like Fox News and OANN, have impacted public opinion about Dominion itself. Word of potential lawsuits is what prompted both Fox News and OANN to offer on-air corrections about statements people have made about the company while appearing on programming, which was an embarrassing correction on its own but also one clearly designed to avoid legal action.
That sort of course correction hasn’t happened with Powell, and it also hasn’t occurred with Trump, who as recently as Saturday was caught on tape describing a nonsense conspiracy where Dominion somehow removed the insides of a voting machine and replaced it with new parts to somehow carry out voter fraud. And while it’s unlikely that Trump will face any legal action from his dubious pressuring of election officials to throw out results that cast him a loser, it seems Dominion just might take him to court for continuing to disparage the company without any evidence. And according to ABC News, a Dominion employee is taking matters into their own hands, suing Trump and conservative media companies as well:
Eric Coomer, security director at the Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems, said he wants his life back after being named in false charges as a key actor in “rigging” the election for President-elect Joe Biden. There has been no evidence that the election was rigged.
His lawsuit, filed Tuesday in district court in Denver County, Colorado, names the Trump campaign, lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, conservative columnist Michelle Malkin, the website Gateway Pundit, Colorado conservative activist Joseph Oltmann, and conservative media Newsmax and One America News Network.
“I have been thrust into the public spotlight by people with political and financial agendas but, at heart, I am a private person,” Coomer said in a statement.
It’s impossible to know the future, but given what we know about the actual evidence of fraud Trump and his allies clearly don’t have, it would be likely Trump continues to lose in 2021.
(Via Axios)