Rudy Giuliani is being sued for defamation by a voting software company that is also seeking close to £1bn in damages.
Dominion Voting Systems alleges Donald Trump’s personal lawyer defamed them with incessant lies about US election fraud.
The 107-page lawsuit, first reported by The New York Times, accuses Giuliani of having “manufactured and disseminated” false claims that Dominion voting machines threw out or changed votes for Trump in the 2020 US election.
This “big lie” of a stolen election “deceived millions of people into believing Dominion had stolen their votes and fixed the election,” the lawsuit alleged.
Giuliani “cashed in” on those defamatory claims by reportedly seeking £15,000 a day from the Trump campaign and hosting a podcast where he repeatedly peddled the lies, the lawsuit contended.
“Even after the United States Capitol had been stormed by rioters who had been deceived by Giuliani and his allies, Giuliani shirked responsibility for the consequences of his words and repeated the big lie,” the lawsuit said.
Dominion has also taken legal action against other Trump allies who helped the ex-president promote outrageous and baseless conspiracy theories involving the company.
Earlier this month, Dominion sued former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell for £1bn over her accusations that the company’s machines rigged the election in favour of president Joe Biden.
Dominion sent a cease and desist letter to MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a Trump confidante, ordering him to “preserve and retain all documents relating to Dominion and your smear campaign against the company” and promised “imminent” litigation.
In December, a Dominion worker filed lawsuits against several parties who pushed the stolen election lie, including Trump and conservative media outlets OAN and Newsmax, claiming the falsehoods led to death threats.
Dozens of prominent attorneys in New York have called for Giuliani’s censure for his role in inspiring the January 6 insurrectionist mob attack against the Capitol. The chair of the New York state Senate judiciary committee called for the state court system to disbar Giuliani.
On Thursday, a national group of lawyers filed a lengthy ethics complaint against Giuliani that alleged he knowingly lied about the election. The non-partisan group Lawyers Defending American Democracy urged the state of New York to investigate Giuliani’s actions and suspend his law licensce in the meantime.