Remember Sidney Powell, the member of Trump’s crack (or should I say cracked) legal team that accused Dominion Voting Systems of orchestrating a massive fraud that deprived Trump of. his election win? Dominion sued her for defamation and was asking for $1.3 billion in damages. Well, she has now come up with a defense that no one in their right mind could have thought that she was serious, despite her going on TV, meeting in the White House with Trump, and giving press conferences multiple times making those allegations.
Sidney Powell argued Monday that she couldn’t be sued for defamation for repeatedly promoting false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being rigged because “no reasonable person would” believe that her comments “were truly statements of fact.”
Now facing billion-dollar lawsuits from both companies and having lost all of her court cases challenging the election, Powell is on the defensive. On Monday, her legal team filed a motion to dismiss Dominion’s $1.3 billion-lawsuit, or at least to move it from the federal district court in Washington, DC, to Texas. They argued that the election fraud narrative that Powell had spent months touting as grounds to undo the presidential election was “hyperbole” and political speech entitled to protection under the First Amendment.
Even if Powell’s statements were presentations of fact that could be proven as true or false, her lawyers wrote, “no reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact.”
…Powell deflected blame to the Trump supporters who adopted the conspiracy theories and lies that she and other Trump allies pushed and that ultimately fueled the insurrection at the US Capitol on Jan. 6.
The claim that the whole thing was essentially a kind of performance art on her part is breathtaking in its disingenuousness. But she was not the only person being sued and not just by Dominion.
Powell’s response to Smartmatic’s defamation lawsuit in state court in Manhattan is due April 8. Smartmatic’s lawsuit also names Fox News, longtime Trump lawyer and ally Rudy Giuliani, and conservative commentators Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro as defendants. Dominion has separate lawsuits against Giuliani and Mike Lindell, the My Pillow CEO.
Let’s see what the other defendants of lawsuits by Dominion and Smartmatic say.
I had been wondering what defense she would mount but never imagined that it would be as outlandish as this.
Republicans -- the party of accountability and personal responsibility.
As I commented on the Political Madness thread:
Let’s hope that the judges see through the bullshit and slam them face first into responsibility for their actions.
Let’s hope that the judges see through the bullshit and slam them face first into responsibility for their actions.
It would be made so worthwhile to dismiss the case. But how to achieve that while still keeping one’s reputation? It’s a real quandary.
Hey, it worked for Tucker Carlson who is *checks notes* a TV host on a “news” network and not a lawyer who has tried to take accusations to court.
This might come across as a stupid question, but does she have $1.3b ? Or even anything like it?
I mean, someone could sue me for a billion quid if they liked, but I’d probably rest at least part of my defence on the fact that if you add up my assets and debts they’re welcome to the contents of my wallet, which is five quid, some stamps, some assorted coins, a loyalty card for a coffee shop that closed three years ago and a set of lockpicks.
@5 sonofrojblake
Initial figures are always ridiculous in this sort of case. The reason is simply that the court is likely to reduce the damages during the case but never increase it. So plaintiffs throw every potential dime they can imagine in and let the courts carve out something reasonable.
Does US law allow exceptions for defrauding and manipulating not-reasonable persons?
Powell most likely won’t be able to stump up the 1.3 billion or whatever is awarded but a strong message will be sent that there are costs associated with uttering these sorts of statements in public, hopefully to the betterment of the democratic processes,
Pierce R. Butler @ 7
Not that I’ve ever heard of. And I can’t imagine any judge wanting to allow a case to go into the quicksand of trying to determine who is a “reasonable person” for the purposes of a specific charge of libel.
I don’t even think that people (reasonable or not) have to believe it is really true. The issue in libel is whether the plaintiff’s reputation has been damaged; I think someone cancelling an order would be prima facie evidence that Dominion’s was. For that matter, in some jurisdictions (not the USA), even provably true assertions can be held to be libel; the same for statements that are clearly expressions of opinion (like “PZ is a poopy-head.”)
Allison @ # 9: …I can’t imagine any judge wanting to allow a case to go into the quicksand of trying to determine who is a “reasonable person” …
Powell’s implied exception (I for one would declare any Trump™ Chump© ipso facto not a reasonable person) leaves a very large percentage of the population in permanent open season. Just think what The Donald himself could do with such a loophole!