Dominion Voting Systems filed a defamation lawsuit Monday against Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who led the former president’s efforts to question the results of the 2020 election, including in Pennsylvania.

The lawsuit seeks more than $1.3 billion in damages for the voting machine company, a target for conservatives who blamed it for Trump’s loss and alleged its systems were easily manipulated. Dominion is one of the nation’s top voting machine companies and provided machines for 14 counties in Pennsylvania and the state of Georgia, the critical battleground that President Biden won and which flipped control of the U.S. Senate.

The company faced such a mountain of threats and criticism that one of its top executives went into hiding. The suit is based on statements Giuliani made on Twitter, in conservative media and during legislative hearings, where the former mayor of New York claimed the voting machine company conspired to flip votes to Biden.

Former President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani faces a $1.3 billion lawsuit by U.S. voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems over 'big lie' election fraud claims https://t.co/zQhkhpz1nk pic.twitter.com/lm7N7iU69t

— Reuters (@Reuters) January 26, 2021

Dominion’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in the District of Columbia, is among the first major signs of fallout for the former president’s allies and the failed effort to overturn the 2020 election that ended with a Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob that claimed the election had been stolen.

“For Dominion — whose business is producing and providing voting systems for elections — there are no accusations that could do more to damage Dominion’s business or to impugn Dominion’s integrity, ethics, honesty and financial integrity,” the lawsuit says. “Giuliani’s statements were calculated to — and did in fact — provoke outrage and cause Dominion enormous harm.”

Pennsylvania plays prominently in the suit, which actually begins with Giuliani’s appearance in federal court in Williamsport on Nov. 17 before U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann.

Even though Dominion voting machines were used in Pennsylvania in the 2020 election, the Trump campaign’s complaint about the state’s election results never mentioned them.

At a hearing before Brann, Giuliani told the court that the Trump campaign was not alleging actual fraud. Dominion voting machines were used in 14 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, including Armstrong, Bedford, Clarion, Crawford, Fayette and Jefferson, according to its website. The company noted Trump won 12 of the 14 counties.

Election officials across the country, including Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr, have confirmed there was no widespread fraud. Republican governors in Arizona and Georgia, key battleground states crucial to Biden’s victory, also vouched for the integrity of the elections in their states. Nearly all of the legal challenges from Trump and his allies were dismissed by judges, including two tossed by the U.S. Supreme Court, which includes three Trump-nominated justices.

Giuliani did not respond to a reporter’s message seeking comment.

Dominion also sued pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, who claimed that the company was created in Venezuela to rig elections for the late leader Hugo Chavez and that it has the ability to switch votes.

The lawsuit also alleges Giuliani’s statements about Dominion and the election being “stolen” helped to perpetuate the violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as Congress was meeting to certify Biden as the winner of the election.

Kevin Allen, a Pittsburgh-based partner at Eckert Seamans who handles defamation cases, said for Dominion to prevail over Giuliani, the company must prove that the statements he made about it are false and that they harmed Dominion’s reputation.

The company alleges in the suit that it has suffered “unprecedented reputational and financial harm.”

Giuliani’s tweets about the company were liked more than half a million times, the complaint said, and retweeted more than 160,000 times.

“Based on the average followers and the number of retweets overall, Giuliani’s false tweets about Dominion potentially reached more than 331 million Twitter accounts — or about the same number of accounts as the entire U.S. population.”

Allen said Dominion’s reputation has been “hurt on an enormous scale.”

Further, Dominion alleges actual malice. That, Allen said, means they will have to show that Giuliani knew what he was saying was untrue — or that he said it with reckless indifference and should have known it was untrue.

“We don’t have an unfettered right to say whatever we want to say about our fellow citizens,” Allen said. “Everyone has the right to make sure their good name is not attacked unfairly.”

Allegations that Dominion rigged Venezuelan elections would be defamatory, Allen said.

“That’s alleging crimes,” he said.

As for Dominion’s demand for $1.3 billion in damages, Allen said he does not put much stock in that number and that it was more likely designed to garner media attention. In the lawsuit, Dominion said it has spent more than $1.1 million to attempt to mitigate the harm it already has experienced.

But, the complaint also noted the company generates revenue by selling its voting technology to state and local governments, with contracts that can range from tens of thousands to more than $100 million.

Since Giuliani’s allegations against the company, Dominion said lawmakers in several states, including Pennsylvania, have said they will seek to rescind contracts with the company.

“It’s an extraordinary case, and so, in theory, there could be damages that are extraordinary,” Allen said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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