(Mandel Ngan/AFP)
A federal judge in the District of Columbia dismissed a counterclaim filed by Sidney Powell against Dominion Voting Systems.
The voting tech company is suing Powell, a former Donald Trump campaign lawyer, in a $1.3 billion defamation complaint over false claims she made about its equipment following the 2020 election, but a judge ruled Wednesday that Dominion had not abused the legal process to “to punish and make an example” out of her.
"Powell must allege that Dominion, after filing its suit, performed some act that perverted the judicial process," wrote District Court judge Carl Nichols. "But Powell’s complaint fails to link her abuse-of-process claim to any act that Dominion has taken other than filing and pursuing its lawsuit. She has thus failed to state a claim for abuse of process."
The attorney complained that Dominion sent a letter and a copy of its complaint to another individual demanding he retract his defamatory statements, and Powell alleges the company has publicly threatened to file similar lawsuits, but the judge said both actions were standard legal practice.
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"Powell claims that both acts support a finding that Dominion is using its lawsuit to suppress public criticism," Nichols wrote. "But neither of these acts is improper, and both fall 'far short of the usual case of abuse of process where there is an attempt at extortion in a manner collateral to the litigation.'"
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