Supreme Court docket rejects Trump ally Mike Lindell’s appeal in 2020 election lawsuit

The Supreme Courtroom on Monday rejected MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s bid to fend off a defamation lawsuit the voting machine corporation Dominion Voting Devices submitted over his far-fetched promises about the 2020 presidential election.

The justices’ decision not to hear the circumstance means a federal judge’s ruling in August 2021 that allowed the lawsuit to shift forward stays in area.

Lindell, a prominent Tv salesman for the pillows his organization can make, is an outspoken supporter of previous President Donald Trump.

Dominion sued Lindell and MyPillow in February 2021, claiming $1.3 billion in damages and alleging that Lindell purposely pushed the “large lie” that Trump gained the 2020 election. Lindell repeatedly echoed baseless statements that Dominion’s machines manipulated vote counts to guarantee that Joe Biden defeated Trump. The promises have been broadly debunked. In the lawsuit, Dominion argues that Lindell knew his promises had been phony, although Lindell’s attorneys say he genuinely thinks them.

“Lindell asserts today, as he did in the course of the applicable time period, that his statements about Dominion, its voting devices, and the integrity of the tabulation were being, and carry on to be, valid, exact, and genuine,” Lindell’s legal professionals wrote in court papers.

Lindell experienced unsuccessfully asked U.S. District Decide Carl Nichols of Washington, D.C., to allow for him to attraction two authorized issues associated to the landmark 1964 Supreme Court defamation ruling in New York Instances v. Sullivan, which concluded that there should be proof of “true malice” for a general public figure to pursue a defamation assert. Lindell argues that Dominion is a general public figure for the reason that it performs a authorities function in elections and that hence the “real malice” standard applies. His lawyers argue that since Lindell truly believes in his claims, there was no “real malice” and that for that reason the lawsuit should be dismissed.

Dominion also sued Trump allies Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani for defamation. Nichols authorized individuals statements to transfer ahead, as well, but Powell and Giuliani were being not associated in Lindell’s Supreme Court docket charm.

In a independent circumstance, Nichols in May perhaps threw out Lindell’s very own defamation lawsuit against Dominion and Smartmatic, one more voting machine business. Dominion and Smartmatic have also filed identical defamation lawsuits versus Fox Information and other conservative media stores.

Two conservative justices — Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch — have prompt that the 1964 defamation precedent, which would make it more durable for general public figures to bring defamation promises, need to be overturned.