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The week
National spokesperson: ‘Mike Lindell is asking to be sued, and at some point we just might force him’
“In just a matter of weeks, lawsuits and legal threats from a pair of obscure election technology companies have achieved what years of advertising boycott, public pressure campaigns and liberal outrage have failed to stop the flow of disinformation in the right-wing media, ”Michael Michael Grynbaum wrote to The New York Times. Dominion Voting Systems sued Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell for libel, seeking $ 1.3 billion in damages, and threatened to sue Fox News and other conservative media. Rival voting technology company Smartmatic sued Fox News for $ 2.7 billion. Brian Stelter of CNN asked Dominion spokesman Michael Steel about the lawsuits on Sunday, including whether any news is imminent. “I’m not here to make any news on that front, but let me say this: Mike Lindell is asking to be sued, and at some point we just might force him,” Steel said. Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, paid three hours of airtime Friday on One America News Network to air a show he produced about his conspiracy theories to vote. OANN launched it with an extraordinary warning. Lindell tweeted Saturday night that he could sue Dominion, a threat Steel mocked CNN. Steel, a former House Speakers spokesperson Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) And John Boehner (R-Ohio), also said Dominion suing Fox News was “definitely a possibility.” A media law professor, Lynn Oberlander, told Stelter that the warnings Fox News, Newsmax, OANN and other outlets have shown about the election fraud allegations may actually protect them from defamation suits. They are “not the typical playbook of the right-wing media, which pride themselves on pugilism and like to ignore liberals who have long complained about its content,” writes Grynbaum. But like it or not, “litigation represents a new front in the war on disinformation, a scourge that has reshaped American politics, deprived citizens of common facts, and paved the way for the deadly attack on January 6. against the Capitol “. Defamation lawsuits “should not be the way to govern speech in our country,” lawyer Roberta Kaplan told The Times. “This is not an effective or productive way to promote truth or quality journalistic standards by suing in court. But I think it has gotten to the point where the problem is so serious right now, it doesn’t there’s hardly any other way to do it. ” Fox News said in a statement it was “proud of our 2020 election coverage and will vigorously defend” against Smartmatic’s “baseless lawsuit”. What is the purpose of Trump’s second impeachment trial? 5 brutally funny cartoons about the failed vaccine rollout in the United States
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