Mike Lindell, the outspoken conservative owner of MyPillow, announced Monday that his company sued Dominion Voting Systems for $1.6 billion because the voting technology firm has violated his First Amendment-protected rights.
“MyPillow just sued Dominion for $1.6 billion. This is all about the First Amendment rights to free speech, what they have done to our country,” said Lindell during a livestream on the Right Side Broadcasting Network.
“This isn’t about the money,” he added. “This is about our First Amendment.”
The announcement was a response to Dominion’s decision to sue Lindell for $1.3 billion earlier this year on grounds that he defamed them by claiming that their technology was used to steal the 2020 presidential election for Joe Biden.
That case, pending in federal court in Washington, will be heard by Judge Carl J. Nichols, a Trump appointee. Lindell filed a motion to dismiss it last week.
Dominion has also launched lawsuits of over a $1 billion each against Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, and against pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell.
In announcing his suit, Lindell was joined by lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who argued that Dominion acted as the government due to the power the feds extended to the voting-machine company. Thus, Dominion’s actions are suppressing the viewpoints of critics, Dershowitz alleged.
“We don’t suppress. We don’t censor, but that is what Dominion is trying to do on behalf of the government,” said Dershowitz, who is advising Lindell and his legal team. “We are going to be demanding access to their machines, to their codes.”
In the suit, Lindell accuses Dominion of engaging in “lawfare” in order to silence critics who question the workings of their machines.
“Dominion’s purpose is to silence debate; to eliminate any challenge to the 2020 presidential election; and to cancel and destroy anyone who speaks out against Dominion’s work on behalf of the government in administering the election,” reads the 51-page complaint. “Dominion is using the legal process as a weapon to suppress free speech.”
Stephen Shackelford, a partner at Susman Godfrey LLP serving as Dominion’s legal counsel, declared that the lawsuit had no merit.
“This is a meritless retaliatory lawsuit, filed by MyPillow to try to distract from the harm it caused to Dominion,” Shackelford stated.
Lindell explained that he decided to sue because Dominion was harming his employees and company, which has lost business opportunities as a result of the accusations against him.
“I’ve been canceled individually on just about every platform known to man,” he maintained.
Lindell is correct in describing Dominion’s suit against him as “lawfare.” Not only the Left, but the Deep State in general, have become adept at using lawsuits (or even the threat of lawsuits) as a weapon for silencing and financially ruining their opponents. Just look at the ordeals through which Trump allies such as Mike Flynn and Roger Stone were put through to take them out of the political fight.
Lindell is also correct in counter-suing. Far too often, the strategy on the Right has been to seek cover and hide one’s head under the sand in the face of assault from the Left.
President Trump has said that if someone hits him, he hits back twice as hard. If Republicans as a party had followed that policy over the last decades, the socialist movement in this country wouldn’t have the power it currently does.
Even after President Trump displayed the value of fighting back (and the conservative base’s desire for such fierceness from its representatives) over the last several years, top Republicans refuse to get it.
Observe the difference between the GOP’s reaction to comments made by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) before she was elected to Congress, comments her detractors say were violent, and the reaction by Democrats to Representative Maxine Waters’ (D-Calif.) comments in recent days in which she encouraged rioters to be “more confrontational” if police officer Derek Chauvin is acquitted for the death of George Floyd.
Greene was condemned and rebuked by her own party’s leadership. Meanwhile, Waters is being rabidly defended by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
The political right can expect to continue ceding ground so long as it holds to its traditional strategy of surrender-and-fold.
However, Lindell’s counterpunch offers hope that a new generation of conservative public figures are beginning to understand that action, not empty posturing, is the way to win.
