WASHINGTON (CN) — Dominion Voting Systems filed a trio of lawsuits Tuesday, the smallest one still over 100 pages, against conservative media networks, reporters and the individual allies of President Donald Trump who insisted over the airwaves and on Twitter that Trump's election loss was rigged.
The complaints, two filed federally in Washington and one in Delaware Superior Court, each seek $1.6 billion in damages, saying that Newsmax, One America News, various OAN reporters and stakeholders, and former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne manufactured and promoted a series of verifiably false lies about Dominion.
They “helped create and cultivate an alternate reality where up is down, pigs have wings, and Dominion engaged in a colossal fraud to steal the presidency from Donald Trump by rigging the vote,” each of the complaints states.
Attorneys at the law firms Susman Godfrey and Clare Locke are attached to all three lawsuits, though the Delaware suit is also filed with Wilmington-based attorney Brian Farnan.
The complaints claim that the falsehoods that Newsmax and One America News promoted were spurred by a quest for profits and viewers in their competition against Fox News.
“Dominion quickly became the focus of this downward spiral of lies, as each broadcaster attempted to outdo the others by making the lies more outrageous, spreading them further, and endorsing them as strongly as possible,” the massive 213-page lawsuit against One America News states.
The court filing goes on to detail how One America brought on guests, like Byrne, to spread misinformation, while also producing a series of many-hour-long “documentaries” on the voting machine company and fundraising for sham auditors to attack Dominion’s business.
In the 106-page lawsuit against Byrne, Dominion details how the ex-CEO used a series of false claims to catapult himself back into the national spotlight.
“He promoted himself as an ‘us-against-the-world’ hero, and won access to the highest echelons of political power, including an in-person meeting with Trump at the White House,” the complaint says, attaching a selfie Byrne shared as evidence in the complaint.
Dominion alleges that Byrne’s actions could be fueled by his own financial motives, as he has invested millions of dollars in blockchain voting technology, which would only succeed with the downfall of paper-based voting systems like Dominion.
Newsmax said in an email that it hasn’t yet reviewed the 177-page lawsuit, but referenced a December 2020 statement after it had to retract some of its reporting as part of a settlement with a Dominion employee who sued over the outlet’s 2020 election coverage.
“Newsmax simply reported on allegations made by well-known public figures, including the President, his advisors and members of Congress,” a Newsmax spokesperson said in an email.
“Dominion’s action today is a clear attempt to squelch such reporting and undermine a free press.”
One America News didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Dominion has already filed four other defamation lawsuits regarding its role in the 2020 election, against Rudy Giuliani, pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and Fox News. Each of the parties has denied allegations and asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuits.
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