Dominion says Mike Lindell's court arguments pushing election lies 'threaten the rule of law'

mike lindell at trump rally — Mike Lindell, CEO of My Pillow, walks past a crowd of supporters during a rally for former President Donald Trump on Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022, in Florence, Az.
AP Photo/Nathan Howard

Dominion asked a judge on Monday night to move its defamation lawsuit against Mike Lindell forward.
It said the MyPillow CEO's counterclaims, if granted by the judge, make no sense under the court system.
Lawyers for Dominion and Lindell said they have no intention of settling their cases.

Dominion Voting Systems asked a federal judge on Monday night to allow the company's defamation lawsuit against Mike Lindell to proceed, arguing that the MyPillow CEO's arguments in the case "threaten the rule of law."

"If allowed to proceed, they would impose liability on innumerable parties engaging in ordinary, day-to-day acts of litigation," Dominion's attorneys wrote of Lindell's counterclaims in the case. "They would deter future litigants from bringing their disputes to court in the first place."

Dominion sued Lindell and MyPillow in February of last year, claiming $1.3 billion in damages and alleging they defamed the election technology company by pushing lies about its role in the 2020 election. It's part of a spate of lawsuits Dominion filed against election conspiracy theorists and media entities it says platformed them.

Lindell filed a counterclaim in December, alleging Dominion was engaged in an illegal conspiracy to punish him through litigation, and rehashing falsehoods claiming the company manipulated election results so that then-President Donald Trump would lose the 2020 election.

In Dominion's new filing, the company asks the judge to dismiss Lindell's counterclaim, arguing he doesn't have a sufficient basis for saying Dominion broke the law, and move the case forward.

"The proverbial 'schoolyard bully who can't take a punch' is not even the right analogy," Dominion's attorneys write. "Lindell and MyPillow are bullies who, after attacking their victim in the schoolyard, claim that the victim is forbidden from going to the nurse to dress his wounds, or to the principal's office to have them held accountable."

The filing comes a week after the parties in the case offered status updates for a discovery schedule. Lawyers for Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, two Trump-supporting attorneys who are also defendants in Dominion's defamation lawsuits, have been participating in the discovery process. Attorneys for Lindell and MyPillow, however, have avoided showing up to meetings and say they should not have to participate until their appeals to dismiss the case are exhausted.

Lawyers for Lindell, Giuliani, Powell, and Dominion have all said there was no "realistic possibility" they would come to a settlement instead of going to trial.

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