Sidney Powell, one among a group of lawyers who were allied with Donald Trump, walks to join Rudy Giuliani (Trump's personal attorney) at a news conference held at the headquarters the Republican National Committee in Washington, Nov. 19, 2020. (Erin Schaff/The New York Times).
A team of lawyers close to President Donald Trump held a news conference at the Republican Party headquarters in Washington two weeks after the 2020 election. They presented a bizarre conspiracy theory that claimed a voting machine company conspired with George Soros, a financier, and Venezuela to steal Trump's presidential election.
According to court documents, Trump's team had a problem Monday night.
Trump's campaign had already prepared an intern memo to address many of the outrageous claims made about Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic by the time the news conference took place on Nov. 19. These allegations were proven false by the memo.
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Court papers filed by Eric Coomer late last week in a defamation suit against the campaign and other defendants, show that Trump campaign officials knew from the beginning that many of the allegations against the companies were unfounded.
These documents also indicate that the campaign ignored Dominion's findings while Sidney Powell and others attacked it in the conservative media. Finally, four federal lawsuits were filed against the campaign accusing it of a massive conspiracy to rig Trump's election.
According to the emails, Zach Parkinson (then the campaigns deputy director for communications) reached out to his subordinates on November 13 to ask them to clarify or debunk various matters regarding Dominion. According to emails, Parkinson received a copy the memo from his staff that was largely compiled from news articles and public fact checking services.
Although the memo was not prepared in a timely fashion, it refuted a number of claims that Powell and others made public. It revealed:
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The 2020 election saw the Dominion not use Smartmatic's voting technology.
The Dominion did not have any direct ties with Venezuela or Soros.
Powell and others claimed that Dominions leadership was connected to antifa activists on the left.
According to Coomers lawyers, in their motion in defamation action, the memo that was produced by Trump's campaign shows that the Trump campaign did not find any evidence supporting conspiracy theories about Dominion or Coomer.
Many voters and political observers, Republican and Democratic, dismissed Powell's efforts and those of pro-Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, as an attempt to appease a defeated president while denying his loss. The false theories quickly gained popularity in conservative media and lasted almost a year.
It is not clear if Trump saw or knew about the memo. The documents show that Trump's campaigns communications staff kept silent about the claims against Dominion, even though they were freely circulating.
According to the motion, Trump's campaign allowed its agents to continue to promote conspiracy theories that were debunked and to defame Coomer. However, they did not provide them with any research to disprove those theories.
Coomer, Dominions' former director of product strategy, security, sued Powell and Giuliani as well as the Trump campaign last year in Denver state district court. He claims that he was falsely accused by a right-wing podcast host that he hack his company's systems in order to defeat Trump and then told left-wing activists that it had.
These accusations were made by Joe Oltmann shortly after they were made. Powell and Giuliani were part of an elite strike force that included lawyers who led the charge against Joe Biden's victory.
For example, Powell and Giuliani were seen together at a news conference at Republican National Committees headquarters on Nov. 19. They placed Coomer in the middle of a plot by the Republican National Committees to hack Dominions voting machines. According to Powells account, the conspiracy involved Smartmatic, Venezuelan officials and people connected with Soros, as well as a large influence of communist money.
Messages seeking comment on the documents from Powell and Giuliani were not answered by either Powell or Giuliani. Trump representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
Trump continues to falsely claim that the election was stolen. Powell and Giuliani continue to maintain their claims that there was fraud in the election. In a court filing last month, a Giuliani attorney stated that at least some of Trump's claims of election fraud were substantial.
Powell also stated that Powell had told an Australian Broadcasting Corp. reporter three weeks ago that the 2020 election was basically a bloodless coup in which they took control of the presidency of the United States.
It is not clear how widespread the memo was distributed among Trump campaign staff. According to court documents, Giuliani stated in a deposition that the memo had not been seen before he presented in Washington. He also questioned the motives for those who prepared it.
Giuliani said in the deposition that they wanted Trump to lose so they could raise more money.
However, Powell and Giuliani were active supervisors at the time the internal report was being prepared. This is a reference to the Trump campaign's broader plan for challenging the election results. The effort eventually saw more than 60 unsuccessful lawsuits filed throughout the country. Powell quickly claimed that Dominion conspired against the election steal, but Giuliani continued to work closely with Trump and his campaign. Giuliani eventually changed strategies and sought to persuade the state legislatures to reverse the popular vote.
The motion states that it was unclear who Powell was working for at the moment: her nonprofit organization, Trump campaign or herself. Trump tried to distance himself from Powell almost immediately after she had promoted the conspiracy theory of Dominion at the November news conference. Trump began to narrow his legal options by December and started to consider bringing her back into the fold. He also discussed the possibility of appointing her as special counsel in charge of investigating voter fraud.
Dominion has sued Giuliani as well as Powell for defamation. Dominion also filed a defamation lawsuit against Mike Lindell (CEO of MyPillow) for amplifying false election claims. A Washington federal judge ruled last month that the cases could move forward towards trial.
A federal judge in Detroit also ordered that penalties be imposed against Powell and eight other pro Trump lawyers. Giuliani wasn't one of those who filed a lawsuit seeking to reverse the election results in Michigan by using false claims about Dominion.
Judge Linda V. Parker stated in her decision that this case wasn't about fraud. It was about undermining people's faith in democracy and debasing the judiciary process to do it.
A New York court suspended Giulianis' law license in June after he made misleading and false statements during his fight for the Trump election results.
According to court documents, Trump campaign officials maintained the false belief that the election was marred with fraud even recently.
Attorneys for Coomer asked Sean Dollman (a representative of Trump's campaign) in a deposition whether the campaign still believed the election was fraudulent. He replied, "Yes, sir."
The lawyers asked: "What is the basis for that opinion?"
Dollman provided a less certain answer, according to court documents.
He said that there are no underlying facts that prove it was not.
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