Government

Kraken Queen Says Dominion Voting Is The REAL Defamation In $10M Countersuit

The Kraken is dead, long live the Kraken.

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Rudy Giuliani And Trump Legal Advisor Hold Press Conference At RNC HQ

(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The best defense is a good offense — unless it comes in the form of a counterclaim alleging abuse of the litigation process because someone sued you for defamation when his real intent was to clear his own name. In that case, it’s just flotsam on the federal docket.

And yet that is exactly what Sidney Powell and her counsel, fellow Krak-travelers Lawrence Joseph and Howard Kleinhendler, allege in their countersuit against Dominion Voting Systems, which filed a billion dollar defamation claim against Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and the MyPillow company in January 2021.

Powell seizes on an interview in which Dominion CEO John Poulos said that his “ultimate goal” was to convince Americans that the 2020, election was fair as evidence that the real purpose of litigation is to vindicate the company in the court of public opinion, which she describes as an illegitimate objective of a defamation suit.

Dominion’s motive in suing Defendants was not to obtain the ludicrous amount of over $1 billion in damages, but instead to use the judicial system to obtain the improper ends of not only tarnishing Ms. Powell’s reputation with allegations that would be defamatory if not protected by the litigation privilege, diverting attention from the failings of its election equipment, trying to change the “narrative” that was exposing Dominion’s serious flaws and wrongdoing, and avoiding post-election inquiry into voting irregularities in the 2020 election, but also silencing those who have been or may in the future be critical about the flaws in Dominion’s voting systems to bolster Dominion’s badly tarnished public image.

Hooboy, Howie and Larry are comin’ in hot!

Leave aside for the moment that the Kraken Krew spent a year plastering federal and state courts with garbage lawsuits in an attempt to foment their own public narrative of a stolen election. FFS, they just got sanctioned by a federal judge for failing to perform even a cursory check of the veracity of affidavits they submitted to bolster their nonsensical claims! But this way madness lies.

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As evidence for her counterclaim, Powell points to cease and desist letters sent to third parties referencing the pending litigation, which she characterizes as “intimidation of witnesses.” And she demands $10 million to reimburse her for the cost of defending herself against Dominion’s defamation suit.

Urging US District Judge Carl Nichols to dismiss the countersuit, Dominion responds that Powell cannot possibly hope to claim injury on behalf of third parties who received letters saying “Hey, quit defaming us or else.” Citing multiple precedents in DC, the company argues that the mere act of filing a lawsuit can never in and of itself constitute “abuse of process,” and thus Powell’s cost of defending herself is irrelevant. And they note that salvaging Dominion’s good name is not an illegitimate goal of defamation litigation, because that is not how any of this works.

In a reply motion filed yesterday, Powell says the same stuff she said before, but LOUDER. Also she claims that the cease and desist letters have the effect of “coercing third parties not to challenge Dominion in future elections as intended by Dominion, including difficulty in obtaining witnesses and persons who might provide evidence.”

And anyway, how is it even due process to deny Powell’s motion to dismiss Dominion’s case against her but then grant Dominion’s motion to dismiss her counterclaim?

Dominion does not dispute that the counterclaim properly alleges that Dominion had an ulterior motive for suing Counter-Plaintiffs in the underlying litigation. Rather, Dominion argues that the counterclaim should be dismissed because it fails to allege that Dominion took improper abusive actions after the lawsuit was filed. However, the complaint alleges that it did take these improper actions, and by the same standard this Court applied to deny Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss, it must also deny Dominion’s.

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That’s a reference to Judge Nichols’s scathing order in August refusing to dismiss Dominion’s claims. It did not give the impression of a jurist who was going to respond well to a mountain of nutbag filings with bizarre mischaracterizations of the relevant law.

But hope, like the Kraken, never dies, so here we are.

US Dominion Inc. v. Powell [Docket via Court Listener]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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