Judge appears skeptical over effort to dismiss Dominion suit

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday appeared skeptical of arguments to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems over baseless 2020 election claims made by Trump allies Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani and the MyPillow Guy.

The voting system company sued the trio for $1.3 billion each after they claimed the company rigged the election for Democrat Joe Biden. Those claims, along with falsehoods from former President Donald Trump and others, helped spur a violent mob into storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, in a failed effort to stop the certification of Biden's victory.

The three persisted making the accusations even after government officials, both Republican and Democrat, and Trump's own attorney general said there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Dominion's voting equipment was used in several key battleground states.

On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols heard arguments made by attorneys for Powell, Giuliani and Mike Lindell, CEO of Minnesota-based MyPillow, that the case should be dismissed. The attorneys argued the speech was protected by the First Amendment, that Dominion should be considered a government agency because it provided voting equipment for elections and treated like a public figure. And in some cases, attorneys said, the statements made about Dominion were true — and therefore couldn't be considered malicious.

Nichols told the attorneys that the public debate over election security is "not the same as saying a particular company intentionally committed voter fraud."

Powell and Giuliani, both lawyers who filed election challenges on Trump's behalf, and Lindell made various unproven claims about the voting machine company, including that the company was created in Venezuela to rig elections for the late leader Hugo Chavez and that it has the ability...