What would you do if the President of the United States said you were “at the center of a national conspiracy to fraudulently elect” the next Commander-in-Chief? Would you fight back if you were the director of security for the major voting technology company under attack? Last week, this particular executive struck his first blow, and his defamation suit is starting to cause rising waves of concern.

The lawsuit was filed by Eric Coomer, director of product strategy and security for Dominion Voting Systems, which supplies voting machines to about 1900 county governments across the country and helps count the votes of about 40% of Americans in 28 states and Puerto Rico.

Coomer sued Donald Trump’s campaign, along with several of its attorneys and pro-Trump media outlets for defamation in Colorado District Court on December 22. Dominion is based in Denver.

Those sued are lawyers Sidney Powell, Rudolph Giuliani, and Colorado businessman Joseph Oltmann, along with FEC United, Shuffling Madness Media doing business as Conservative Daily, James Hoft, Top Communications LLC doing business as The Gateway Pundit, Michelle Malkin, Eric Metaxas, Chanel Rion, Newsmax Media and Herring Networks, Incorporated doing business as One America News Network.

The filing, according to Reuters, states the defendants “manufactured and spread a false narrative” that Dominion “conspired to rig its equipment and the election in favor of President-elect Biden,” which led to “devastating consequences… including death threats.”

Thus far, courts have failed to find any credible evidence to support charges of fraud made by Trump campaign attorneys and reported by various media organizations. Dominion’s website states, “Dominion Voting Systems categorically denies any claims about any vote switching or alleged software issues with our voting systems. Dominion systems continue to reliably and accurately count ballots, and state and local election authorities have publicly confirmed the integrity of the process. Claims about Dominion switching or deleting votes are 100% false.”

In a public statement at the time of the filing, Coomer said, "The widespread dissemination of false conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election has had devastating consequences both for me personally and for many of the thousands of American election workers and officials, both Republican and Democratic, who put aside their political beliefs to run free, fair, and transparent elections… Elections are not about politics; they are about accurately tabulating legally cast votes."

The lawsuit, filed by prominent libel lawyer Tom Clare, says the baseless charges have thrust Coomer into the national spotlight, defamed his reputation, invaded his privacy and threatened his safety. The Trump campaign’s charges against Coomer are just one example of the baseless and losing claims that have been filed throughout the country that sought to overturn Biden’s victory.

Dominion and Smartmatic, a global voting machine software company based in Venezuela, were the relentless targets of attacks by Trump campaign attorneys Giuliani and Powell on Fox News, Newsmax and One America News, all of which supported a controversial and debunked claim alleging Trump’s victory. Unfortunately for Trump, voters in contested states did not use Smartmatic programs at all.

Two examples of allegedly defamatory statements come from Chris Salcedo of Newsmax who said, “There’s only one reason why you buy a Dominion machine and you buy this Smartmatic software, so you can change votes.” Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business told her Nov. 15 audience that “one source says that the key point to understand is that the Smartmatic system has a backdoor.”

Antonio Mugica, head of Smartmatic, is also jumping on the defamation bandwagon although he has not yet sued. Last week, his lawyer J. Eric Connolly, who in 2017 won the largest settlement in the history of American media defamation, recently contacted the three offending media outlets and told them to keep all relevant documents because they would be needed in a planned libel suit.

Connolly’s $177 million settlement in 2017 was in favor of Dakota Dunes-based Beef Products, Inc., against ABC News that allegedly misled consumers about the safety of what they called “pink slime,” a beef product comprised of the leftover trimmings from butchered cows, often added to ground beef to reduce its fat content.

Connolly told the New York Times, “We’ve gotten to this point where there’s so much falsity that is being spread on certain platforms, and you may need an occasion where you send a message, and that’s what punitive damages can do in a case like this.”

There are several elements in a libel suit. A plaintiff must prove the news story was published or broadcast, that the plaintiff was identified, that the words themselves damaged his or her reputation, and that the words were false or defamatory.

Next, fault must be established, and the degree of fault depends on the status of the plaintiff and the definition of the various classifications of fault in the applicable jurisdiction. If classified as “private figures,” companies such as Dominion and Smartmatic would only have to show negligence on the part of the defendants. In other words, they would have to demonstrate that Trump lawyers and the media companies that reported their falsehoods failed to follow accepted professional practices. Connolly said he would argue that his clients are private figures.

If the court, however, classifies the voting machine companies as “public figures,” perhaps because of their part in a national election, they would have to prove “actual malice,” which means attorney and media defendants made their statements knowing they were false or entertaining serious doubts about their truth.

On the defendants’ side, truth is always a defense. Trump’s lawyers may say their remarks were only descriptions of legal matters. This will be a key defense. But prior to the filing of Coomer’s lawsuit, First Amendment law expert Floyd Abrams told the New York Times, “…It is far too early to predict how the cases, if commenced, will end…But it is not too early to say that they would be highly dangerous to those sued.”

By all accounts, the media organizations are taking Coomer’s lawsuit and the threats of others seriously. The New York Times reported that Fox News and Fox Business aired segments “which appeared scripted to persuade a very literal-minded judge or jury that the network was being fair.” Their clips appeared on shows hosted by Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro in addition to Bartiromo. This was after 792 derogatory mentions of Dominion and 118 of Smartmatic in the preceding weeks.