Updated at 11:45 a.m. ET
Dominion Voting Systems filed a defamation lawsuit against MyPillow and its CEO Mike Lindell on Monday, saying he spread false information that its voting machines rigged the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Dominion filed a suit in federal court in Washington, D.C., seeking damages in excess of $1.3 billion.
According to the complaint, Lindell, an ally of former President Donald Trump, knowingly participated in spreading disinformation that Dominion's voting systems stole the election in favor of President Biden. The company calls this the "Big Lie."
The complaint also alleges that MyPillow ran ads targeted at people who believed the conspiracy theories about the election outcome in order to profit.
Today legal representatives for #DominionVotingSystems filed a defamation complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against My Pillow and its CEO, Mike Lindell. The court filing follows several retraction notices and warnings about legal action.
— Dominion Voting (@dominionvoting) February 22, 2021
"Lindell — a talented salesman and former professional card counter — sells the lie to this day because the lie sells pillows. MyPillow's defamatory marketing campaign — with promo codes like 'FightforTrump,' '45,' 'Proof,' and 'QAnon'—has increased MyPillow sales by 30-40% and continues duping people into redirecting their election-lie outrage into pillow purchases," the complaint said.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Lindell said he was "very, very happy" to find out about the suit.
"I have all the evidence on them," he told the Journal. "Now this will get disclosed faster, all the machine fraud and the attack on our country."
Social media giant Twitter suspended Lindell from its platform last month.
He previously used his verified account to spread debunked theories about the election and widespread voter fraud.
The account was "permanently suspended due to repeated violations of our Civil Integrity Policy," a Twitter spokesperson told NPR at the time. It was not clear which posts from Lindell led to his removal from the social media platform.
Dominion said Lindell carried out business in Washington at "relevant times during the defamatory marketing campaign." It said MyPillow sponsored and marketed itself at rallies in the city on Dec. 12, Jan. 5 and on Jan. 6, the day of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
During the Dec. 12 rally in particular, the complaint stated, Lindell falsely claimed "the algorithms" of voting machines broke, even though vote tallies from Dominion machines were confirmed by an additional hand count in Georgia.
Lindell said in remarks that "we cannot ... let them use these machines" in last month's Georgia Senate runoff races, according to the complaint.
Lindell highlighted these claims in a two-hour-long video released earlier this month. Dominion said it offered to review the film to point out "red flags and other obvious errors," the lawsuit said.
"Lindell purposefully avoided giving Dominion an opportunity to
review [it] ... before broadcast, plainly because he knew it was fake," according to the court documents.
There is no evidence that Dominion or any other voting machine company tampered with the 2020 elections.
The company has also filed lawsuits against Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, lawyers who worked with Trump on his post-election flurry of legal actions, over similar fraud claims. The company is seeking $1.3 billion in damages from each of them.
Read the complaint below.
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