Dominion Voting warns that lawsuits in opposition to Fox Information are imminent

Complaints are coming.

Dominion Voting Systems, one of the targets of President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about the election he lost, has warned Fox News, great Fox figures, other conservative media outlets, radio host Rush Limbaugh, and conservative attorneys that libel disputes are against them ” imminent. “

The voting machine company this week sent 21 letters to the White House, Fox News, its hosts Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, Newsmax news outlets, One America News Network, Epoch Times, and others calling for no defamation Make more claims on Dominion and that they are keeping any documents they have regarding the company.

“We are writing to formally indicate that litigation regarding these issues is imminent,” wrote Dominion attorneys Thomas Clare and Megan Meier in one of the letters to CNBC to Fox News Media General Counsel Lily Fu Claffee .

In their letters to individual news presenters, including Bartiromo, a former CNBC employee, the attorneys called for “no more defamatory claims against Dominion” and said they had “introduced and further introduced” the advocates of this misinformation campaign against. the Company.

Others who have received similar letters warning of impending litigation and requests for document retention include Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani; L. Lin Wood, attorney who questioned Georgia presidential election results, and Newsmax host Greg Kelly.

CNBC has asked recipients to comment on the letters.

During an interview on Thursday on CNN, Dominion CEO John Poulos said the company would take legal action against several people who “promote and reinforce those lies … on various media platforms since election day”.

“We will not overlook anyone,” said Poulos when asked if the company would sue Trump.

Trump has made a number of false claims since losing the national referendum to Joe Biden by more than 7 million votes to argue that he won the election by a landslide and that the ballot papers for him were fraudulently suppressed while the votes were being held for Biden were artificially added in a handful of states where the results were particularly close.

On November 12, just nine days after election day, Trump tweeted a claim that “DOMINION DELETED 2.7 MILLION TRUMP VOTES NATIONWIDE”.

One of the most ardent proponents of Dominion conspiracy theories was Sidney Powell, who last month was fired from the team of attorneys working for Trump’s campaign to undo Biden’s victory because her extreme claims received widespread criticism. Since last week, Powell has met with Trump at least once and has visited the White House three times in connection with her efforts.

Dominion attorneys have also sent Powell a letter warning them of libel claims.

In his interview with CNN, Poulos said Powell’s allegations that his company’s voting machine contains software developed “at the direction” of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a boogeyman for right-wing media outlets, and that Dominion has ties to the Clinton Foundation and George has Soros are “complete lies”.

Dominion’s director of security, Eric Coomer, sued the Trump campaign, Giuliani, Powell and a range of conservative media outlets.

Coomer’s lawsuit alleges that he has been the target of death threats and other harmful communications because of the defendants’ false claims about Dominion’s machines.

Dominion said on its website that “disinformation” about the company poses a threat to democracy.

“Baseless claims about the integrity of the system or the accuracy of the results have been rejected by electoral authorities, subject matter experts and outside fact-checkers,” the company says.

“Malicious and misleading false claims about Dominion have created dangerous threats and harassment to the company and its employees, as well as to election officials.”

Last week, another voting machine company, Smartmatic, announced that it had served Fox News, Newsmax and OAN legal notices and cancellation notices “in order to publish false and defamatory statements”.

“The letters of formal notice list dozens of factually inaccurate statements made by each organization as part of a” disinformation campaign “to violate Smartmatic and discredit the 2020 US election,” the company said at the time.

“Smartmatic had nothing to do with the” controversies “that certain public and private figures have posed regarding the 2020 US election,” the company said. “Several fact-checkers have consistently exposed these false statements with astonishing consistency and regularity.”

Smartmatic said that despite false claims to the contrary, it was “only involved in the US 2020 election as the manufacturing partner, systems integrator and software developer for the Los Angeles County’s public voting system.”