Mike Lindell, president and chief executive officer of My Pillow Inc., speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019.
Aaron P. Bernstein | Bloomberg | Getty Images
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell announced Monday that his company filed a $1.6 billion lawsuit against Dominion Voting Systems, the election-technology firm currently suing the pillow magnate and his business for defamation.
“This is a free-speech case. This is a First Amendment case,” Lindell said on a livestreamed broadcast.
Dominion in February accused MyPillow and Lindell, a loyal supporter of former President Donald Trump, of falsely spreading the claim that the company rigged the 2020 election for President Joe Biden by manipulating votes. Trump’s campaign and his allies lost dozens of lawsuits aiming to overturn key states’ election results.
Dominion is requesting more than $1.3 billion in punitive and compensatory damages, saying the “viral disinformation campaign” spread by Lindell and others has “irreparably damaged” the company’s reputation. Dominion has filed similar lawsuits against Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, attorney Sidney Powell and Fox News.
The new complaint from MyPillow says it is suing to protect free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the contents of the suit.
Andrew Parker, a lawyer for MyPillow in the case brought by Dominion, declined to provide a copy of the complaint to CNBC. Parker denied that MyPillow’s court action constituted a countersuit against Dominion.
But MyPillow’s own lawsuit says it is being brought “to remedy the grave harm that has been suffered by MyPillow as a result of Dominion’s suppression of speech and attacks on the Company,” the Journal reported.
“This is a meritless retaliatory lawsuit, filed by MyPillow to try to distract from the harm it caused to Dominion,” said Stephen Shackleford, legal counsel for Dominion, in a statement to CNBC.
MyPillow’s lawsuit also makes a distinction between Lindell and his company, arguing, “In making these statements, Lindell spoke for himself, not MyPillow,” the Journal reported.
MyPillow on Monday morning also filed a motion to dismiss Dominion’s defamation case.
