The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from MyPillow CEO, Mike Lindell in the defamation case brought against him by Dominion Voting Systems, the voting machines company he accused of rigging the 2020 presidential election against former President Donald Trump.
The $1.3 billion defamation suit by Dominion says Lindell harmed their brand by promoting claims it flipped votes in key battleground states in the election from Donald Trump to now-President Joe Biden.
The lawsuit alleges that Lindell “knowingly lied about Dominion to sell more pillows to people who continued tuning in to hear what they wanted to hear about the election.”
Last year, Trump-appointed U.S. District judge Carl Nichols declined to dismiss the case.
Nichols wrote that Dominion “adequately alleged that Lindell made his claims knowing that they were false or with reckless disregard for the truth.”
“As a preliminary matter, a reasonable juror could conclude that the existence of a vast international conspiracy that is ignored by the government but proven by a spreadsheet on an internet blog is so inherently improbable that only a reckless man would believe it,” Nichols added.
Lindell had appealed that decision but U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said his appeal was premature.
The Supreme Court declining to take up the case means the lawsuit against Lindell can proceed. That means more legal troubles for the close Trump ally.
In September, a Minnesota federal judge declined to dismiss a defamation suit brought by Smartmatic, another voting machines company that Lindell falsely accused of rigging the 2020 election against Trump. Lindell is also under federal investigation for identity theft and conspiring to damage a protected computer connected to a suspected voting equipment security breach in Colorado.
Former Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani are also being sued for making defamatory statements about Dominion during public appearances after the 2020 election. They were not a part of Lindell’s appeal to the Supreme Court.
