File photo of Rudy Giuliani as he speaks as Trump supporters gather by the White House ahead of his speech to contest the certification by the U.S. Congress of the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election in Washington, U.S, January 6, 2021. Reuters
Washington: A US voting machine company sued former President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, accusing him of defamation in what it called his "big lie" campaign about widespread fraud in the presidential election, court documents on Monday showed.
The company, Dominion Voting Systems Inc, earlier filed lawsuits against the Trump campaign and former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, whom the company also accused of spreading false conspiracy theories about the election that Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
Giuliani's lawyer, Robert Costello, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump and his allies spent two months denying his election defeat, and claiming without evidence that it was the result of widespread voter fraud, before his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Dominion is seeking $1.3 billion in damages from the former New York City mayor, alleging in the lawsuit that "he and his allies manufactured and disseminated the 'Big Lie,' which foreseeably went viral and deceived millions of people into believing that Dominion had stolen their votes and fixed the election."
Dominion said it filed the lawsuit "to set the record straight" and to "stand up for itself, its employees, and the electoral process."
A group of prominent attorneys last week asked New York’s judiciary to suspend Giuliani's law license because he made false claims in post-election lawsuits and for urging Trump’s supporters to engage in "trial by combat” shortly before they stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
