Attorneys for Dominion Voting Systems asked social networks to preserve posts made by President Donald Trump and his supporters as it looks to expand its defamation claims over false election conspiracy theories, The Washington Post reports.
The company sent letters to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Parler to preserve posts even if they were removed or the accounts were banned for violating misinformation policies “because they are relevant to Dominion’s defamation claims relating to false accusations that Dominion rigged the 2020 election.”
The letters ask for slightly different lists of names but generally target Trump and his campaign, Fox News and hosts Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, and Jeanine Pirro, Newsmax and host Greg Kelly, and One America News Network. The letters also target MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, rightwing pundit Dan Bongino, and numerous other conservatives that pushed a conspiracy theory baselessly accusing Dominion of flipping votes from Trump to President Joe Biden.
More lawsuits coming:
“We respectfully request that YouTube preserve and retain all posts, messages, documents, data, and electronically stored information relating in any way to Dominion or the disinformation campaign referenced above,” Dominion said in a letter to YouTube, adding that more lawsuits will follow. “This preservation request applies to posts and comments about Dominion that YouTube has removed for violating its terms of use.”
Fox News and Newsmax aired segments debunking their own hosts’ claims about Dominion though some Trump allies, like Lindell, have continued to publicly push the claim.
Giuliani, Powell already sued:
The company already filed a $1.3 billion lawsuit against Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell.
The lawsuit accused Giuliani of waging “a viral disinformation campaign about Dominion” made up of “demonstrably false” claims.
The lawsuit cites 50 statements made publicly by Giuliani about the company.
“Dominion was not founded in Venezuela to fix elections for Hugo Chávez,” the suit says in response to Giuliani’s claims. “It was founded in 2002 in John Poulos’s basement in Toronto to help blind people vote on paper ballots.” The suit later adds that the headquarters for the company’s United States subsidiary is in Denver.
