“No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact,” argued lawyers for Powell, a former federal prosecutor from Texas who caught Trump’s attention through her involvement in the defense of his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Those lies were built on empty claims that apparently originated in anonymous comments on a pro-Trump blog, only to be amplified on a global scale by Trump himself in a 12 November tweet in which he wrote in part “REPORT: DOMINION DELETED 2.7 MILLION TRUMP VOTES NATIONWIDE.”
Citing lost business and reputational damage, Dominion filed a $1.3bn defamation lawsuit against Powell and her colleague on Trump’s legal team, Rudy Giuliani. A Dominion employee separately sued the Trump campaign after receiving death threats.
Thousands of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol on 6 January in an effort to stop the certification of an election they considered invalid, killing a police officer in violent clashes in which four others died.
But lawyers for Powell argued her false statements about election fraud in the months preceding the Capitol insurrection were unmistakably not presented as true facts.
“It was clear to reasonable persons that Powell’s claims were her opinions and legal theories on a matter of utmost public concern,” her legal motion says. “Those members of the public who were interested in the controversy were free to, and did, review that evidence and reached their own conclusions – or awaited resolution of the matter by the courts before making up their minds.”
The filing brought expressions of disbelief from Trump critics.
by Tom McCarthy, The Guardian | Read more:
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[ed. Pleading insanity would be a more believable defense.]
