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With billions of dollars in lawsuits now at stake, Dominion Voting Systems has quietly broadened its legal armada in recent days as the election technology company takes on Trumpworld and conservative media giants.
Clare Locke – the law firm leading Dominion’s lawsuits against Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and pillow mogul Mike Lindell – recently brought in seven attorneys at Texas firm Susman Godfrey, who has experience in the prosecution of the alleged “Kraken” actions. by former Trump lawyers Lin Wood and Sidney Powell.
“There are great synergies between the work the Susman team did on the 2020 election and the libel cases we were pursuing for Dominion,” Tom Clare, of notoriously aggressive law firm Clare Locke, told The Daily Beast. .
“As these discussions unfolded, we also discovered that the two firms have a great cultural similarity in that they have a trial-ready approach to litigation,” he added. “I think it will be a very effective team.”
Dominion expanding its legal team is the latest effort to punish key players in the months-long propaganda campaign to trash the business and baselessly attack the results of the 2020 US presidential contest.
Fox News was hit with a $ 1.6 billion lawsuit on Friday. “Fox News Media is proud of our 2020 election coverage, which follows in the highest tradition of American journalism, and will vigorously defend itself against this baseless court case,” the company said.
Other conservative media outlets, including Newsmax and One American News Network, have also aired post-election conspiracy theories and are among the main targets of Dominion’s next round of lawsuits, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Justin Nelson – an attorney for Susman who assists in Dominion libel cases against Sidney Powell, Mike Lindell and Fox News – represented Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobb against a “Kraken” lawsuit brought by Lin Wood, Sidney Powell and other lawyers against Arizona election officials in an attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state.
This lawsuit, which called on a judge to “quash the results of the 2020 general election,” included many of the bogus allegations that Dominion said amounted to libel, including the allegation that Dominion was using the software from a separate voting technology company, Smartmatic, and that Dominion was “founded by foreign oligarchs and dictators to provide computerized ballot stuffing and vote manipulation” to help Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez steal an election in the country.
At the time, Nelson called the prosecution an “attack on democracy” and argued that Wood, Powell and others “were using the federal court system in an attempt to undermine the rule of law and gain breathtaking relief. , surprising and unprecedented to reverse the situation. the will of the people.
Susman’s attorneys also have experience in litigating a number of high-profile libel cases. Davida Brook – who signed the lawsuit against Powell, Giuliani and Lindell – previously represented Melanie Kohler, a Los Angeles woman who accused director Brett Ratner of rape in a since deleted Facebook post. Brook represented Kohler after Ratner sued her for libel. Ratner subsequently withdrew his complaint.
Brook has also portrayed actress Amber Heard, who was sued by ex-husband Johnny Depp after writing a Washington post The editorial which Depp said had falsely implied he had “committed domestic violence against her.”
Some of the targets or potential targets of the Dominion’s legal wrath have taken cover, or even resorted to deletion articles or covering their tracks. Others stuck with the provocation, claiming that a legal battle and the resulting discovery would instead lead to humiliation for Dominion.
Lindell – who was also a major backer of pro-Trump attempts to undo President Biden’s decisive 2020 victory – previously told the Daily Beast he hired private investigators to dig up the ‘dirt’ and any evidence of foreign entanglements on Dominion and Smartmatic, and that he hoped to file counter actions in the coming weeks.
People familiar with the matter say the company’s legal team still had not ruled out specifically targeting ex-President Trump, but no final decision had yet been made on whether if they wanted to open that box of worms on the former ruler of the free world. During his tenure, Trump personally promoted the same types of conspiracy theories and lies that voting tech executives and their lawyers now claim to have severely and baselessly damaged their businesses and put them at risk via numerous threats. of death.
Former President Trump still faces an avalanche of separate criminal prosecutions, investigations and investigations, including those stemming from alleged sexual assaults, his family business empire, the bloody Jan.6 attack on the Capitol Hill and its broader anti-democratic efforts. following the 2020 elections.
In recent months, Trump – who no longer enjoys the legal protections that come with being president – has privately joked that his enemies will investigate and “sue me for the rest of my life.”
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