One of the largest voting-machine companies in the U.S. today sued two conservative media networks and a businessman it said had defamed it by spreading accusations that it rigged the 2020 election for President Biden.
Dominion Voting Systems filed suits against Newsmax Media Inc. and Herring Networks Inc.’s One America News Network.
Dominion also sued Patrick Byrne, the former chief executive of Overstock.com Inc., an online seller of furniture and other goods.
Dominion accused the two networks of defaming the company and its products by airing false reports that its machines switched votes from President Donald Trump to Biden.
The company also said Byrne repeatedly and falsely alleged that Dominion rigged vote tallies to steal the 2020 presidential election for Biden.
In each of the three lawsuits, Dominion is seeking more than $1.6 billion in damages, citing lost profit and other costs.
“Newsmax helped create and cultivate an alternate reality where up is down, pigs have wings, and Dominion engaged in a colossal fraud to steal the presidency from Donald Trump by rigging the vote,” the suit against Newsmax says.
Also named in the complaint are OAN personalities Chanel Rion and Christina Bobb, and Herring Networks owners Robert Herring and Charles Herring.
The trio of complaints details that OAN, Newsmax and former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne “knowingly and continuously sold the false story of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election, with Dominion cast as the villain.”
“Newsmax and OAN both endorsed, repeated, broadcast, and amplified a series of verifiably false lies about Dominion to serve their own commercial purposes,” wrote Dominion lawyer Stephen Shackelford, a partner at Susman Godfrey LLP.
“Patrick Byrne is responsible for bankrolling and promoting a viral disinformation campaign about Dominion that reached millions of people worldwide. We are suing to set the record straight, to vindicate Dominion’s rights, to hold the defendants accountable, and to recover damages for the devastating economic harm done to Dominion’s business,” Shackelford added.
Dominion was already suing Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Fox News and other pro-Trump figures over election conspiracy claims. Fox has sought to have the suit dismissed.
Trump’s refusal to accept the results in the immediate aftermath of the election culminated in a deadly riot on Jan. 6, when swarms of his supporters left a rally he led and stormed the U.S. Capitol.
They derailed for several hours congressional proceedings to tally electors’ votes and confirm Biden’s win in the Nov. 3 election.
Trump was later impeached by the House and acquitted by the Senate, although several Republicans voted to hold him accountable for the riot.
Trump has since been banned from social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, but he has continued to spread the false narrative that the election was stolen from him.