MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell announced Monday that MyPillow is suing Dominion Voting Systems for $1.6 billion for its alleged “suppression of speech and attacks on the company,” after Dominion sued both MyPillow and Lindell for defamation over an election fraud conspiracy theory involving the company’s voting machines.
Lindell announced the lawsuit during a livestream to mark the planned launch of his new social media platform Frank, which the right-wing pillow executive moved forward with after being banned from Twitter in January.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the lawsuit alleges MyPillow has suffered harms due to Dominion’s claims about the company, noting that election fraud claims Lindell has made were the CEO speaking for himself and not on the company’s behalf.
Dominion’s $1.3 billion lawsuit against Lindell and MyPillow, filed in February, alleges the CEO pushed false claims about Dominion in order to help his company, saying Lindell “sells the lie” involving Dominion’s voting machines “because the lie sells pillows.”
In a statement to Forbes, Dominion legal counsel Stephen Shackelford said the MyPillow complaint is a “meritless retaliatory lawsuit, filed by MyPillow to try to distract from the harm it caused to Dominion.”
Dominion’s lawsuit against Lindell is one of four the company has filed so far against right-wing figures and Fox News for spreading baseless claims about their voting machines. Before Dominion sued Lindell in February the MyPillow CEO had said he wanted Dominion to sue him so he could investigate the company, telling Forbes in a January phone interview, “I welcome Dominion to sue me. I welcome it. Please.” The pillow executive has continued to push the fraud claims about Dominion since the company sued him, and plans to release multiple self-produced documentaries involving the allegations.
Despite a planned launch Monday morning, Lindell’s Frank Speech platform—which is based around principles of free speech, yet will ban the use of profanity and taking the Lord’s name in vain—is so far not yet online. The MyPillow CEO has said he also intends to launch a “patriotic” rival to Amazon called MyStore.
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