New action in the Mike Lindell lawsuits came Monday as the court denied Dominion's motions to stay and expedite in My Pillow v. Dominion, Minnesota.
Three lawsuits are running in parallel between Lindell and Dominion. Our reporting has focused on Lindell v. Dominion, resulting in coverage of the themes common among all of them. But there are differences, and the court ordered as much when they ruled to deny Dominion's motions.
Dominion v. My Pillow & Lindell (Washington DC) - Dominion sued My Pillow & Lindell in D.C. for defamation and deceptive trade practices, saying Lindell's public statements are libelous and slanderous and that they are designed to sell pillows.
My Pillow v. Dominion (Minnesota) - My Pillow sued Dominion, claiming first and fourth amendment violations and that Dominion is interfering with business through intimidation and weaponization of the legal process ("lawfare").
Lindell v. Dominion (Minnesota) - Lindell sued Dominion separately, claiming he is entitled to recovery under the first and fourth amendment, abuse of process, civil conspiracy, and violations under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).
Dominion had moved to stay, or delay, proceedings in this case pending resolution of the ongoing suit Dominion v. Lindell in DC, arguing there is substantial overlap that would make it an inefficient waste of court resources and a burden to proceed with both in parallel. If the claims of the parties in each suit were near enough to identical that it was found by the court to be "duplicative litigation," stay, it would have put My Pillow v. Dominion (Minnesota) on pause to awaited judgment in Dominion v. My Pillow & Lindell (D.C.).
"The proponent of a stay... bears the burden of establishing its necessity... this burden requires Dominion to show a specific hardship of inequity that would result if the Court denied the stay and ordered Dominion to proceed with litigation... Courts have interpreted the movant’s burden to be so substantial as to create a presumption favoring the party opposing the stay."
The court decision explained that "though this lawsuit and the D.C. action are connected, and the claims in each are factually related, they are legally distinct" and said that if the stay were granted, it would have "little, if any, impact on efficiency and conservation of resources." The court further refused to "prejudice Plaintiff's right to prosecute this action based on purely hypothetical concerns that have not materialized."
Dominion has until July 6 to respond to the initiating complaint.
Lindell on War Room
Lindell joined Steve Bannon's War Room twice this month, first June 14th, and then again last week June 24th. On the most recent appearance, Lindell spoke about his lawsuits against Dominion:
"This is what Dominion did... I think there's 200 lawsuits and threatening letters now that they wrote to people rather than just say, 'Hey, look inside our machines, we have nothing to hide.' By the way, who paid for those machines? We did.
These poll-watchers... for free... volunteering in their community... you know how many of them got letters to cease and desist not to talk about what they've seen... that's mafia... This is lawfare. Alan Dershowitz... said this will be the most important case in history for our first amendment rights of free speech... and he's a Democrat."
And he spoke about the media's lack of fair coverage of his lawsuits:
"I've told the media... this is great... this is an opportunity for me to once again tell you guys we were attacked by China - the CCP - they used the Democrat party through the Dominion machines and Smartmatic and ES&S & Hart... if it gets dismissed today, that's great... either way, I get to tell at least the bad media, your CNNs and your ABCs and stuff, I get to say 'Dominion Dominion Dominion' and 'China China China' again...
When you've got your coward FOX's of the world... who can't go out and speak the truth, and they're supposed to be news?... I've said to FOX, you're already sued by Smartmatic and Dominion... maybe you should put out the evidence... the evidence sets you free... the truth shall set you free."
On his June 14 appearance, he announced his mid-July Cyber Forensics Election Symposium of forensics experts and white hat hackers in detail.
"We're bringing all of our evidence to a big venue... any cyber guy that's got credentials in the country, we're going to bring them there. It's going to be unpacking the packet captures," he said.
Referring to the evidence of data transfer he says proves foreign interference in the election, as shown in Exhibit 12 of Lindell v. Dominion.
"We'll televise it. I wanna have Congressmen there. I wanna have Senators there. I wanna have Democrats, Republicans. I wanna have Governors, Attorney Generals, Secretary of States... it's gonna be like showing them a spaceship... by the time everybody leaves there this whole country's gonna go, 'We've got to get this to the Supreme Court...' right after that we're gonna do a nationwide petition... we're also going to do a mock election."
Bannon asked Lindell if he would have the Chinese Communist Party at the symposium, and he said:
"Yes, absolutely. They can sit right next to [Governors] Brian Kemp and Doug Ducey in the front row."
Links to UDC articles about Lindell v. Dominion:
Intro | Explanation for Non-Lawyers | Lindell’s Public Statements | Complaint Summary | Exhibits 1-4 Breakdown | Exhibits 5-7 | Exhibits 8-9 | Exhibit 12 | Exhibits 10-11 & 13-17
