Judge rejects Mike Lindell’s request to throw out defamation lawsuit brought by voting tech company

A Minnesota judge has denied MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell‘s request to throw out a lawsuit from a voting tech company that accused him of defamation, POLITICO reports.

Smartmatic says Lindell and his company defamed the company by spreading conspiracy theories claiming that its voting machines are complicit is mass voter fraud during the 2020 election. As POLITICO points out, Lindell, a diehard Donald Trump supporter, has been pushing voter fraud conspiracy theories since Joe Biden won the presidency.

Lindell moved to dismiss Smartmatic’s complaint, arguing that the company failed to adequately plea the defamation claim, and that the deceptive trade practices claim fails because Lindell was acting in a personal, not professional, capacity when making statements about the 2020 election. MyPillow separately moved to dismiss Smartmatic’s complaint, arguing that it is shielded by the First Amendment and that it did not make any statements about Smartmatic. The company also argued that Lindell’s statements can’t be imputed to MyPillow.

In denying Lindell and MyPillow’s request to throw out the suit, U.S. District Judge Wilhelmina Wright concluded that Smartmatic had supported its defamation claim with facts and that Lindell knew or should have known his statements were false and that he acted with actual malice when pushing them.

Read the full report over at POLITICO.

Sky Palma

Before launching DeadState back in 2012, Sky Palma has been blogging about politics, social issues and religion for over a decade. He lives in Los Angeles and also enjoys Brazilian jiu jitsu, chess, music and art.