Thread by @AkivaMCohen

So Dominion sued Rudy for defamation. How are they ever going to allege actual malice? courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

Oh. Oh.

That's how.

Yep, that'll do it 😀😀

This, on the other hand, won't get them there. Yeah, it's decent evidence that Rudy was in favor of just making shit up. But also, it supports a defense that Rudy really believed Trump must have won and it was "stolen" somehow. I'd probably have left this out of the pleading.

"Giuliani came at this a bit differently" is a quote from this CorsiNation podcast - stitcher.com/show/corsi-nat… - and it may be critical. Anyone want to go diving for context? It's surely not me

Again, actual malice is really really hard. Yes, *this person is crazy and actually believed you were a sentient banana* is a meaningful defense

The Pennsylvania issue remains their best evidence of it, and the thing that may get them past a motion to dismiss

Now onto the defamatory acts - and a couple of nice rhetorical moves being made here. "A few days later" reinforces the "but they wouldn't say it in court" point: it's not like they can claim this was something they didn't "know" or "believe" when they filed in PA - they just

knew it was doubtful enough that they didn't want to be pushing it in a federal court filing.

That's pretty much element for element the definition of actual malice by reckless disregard for the truth: Saying something you have real subjective doubt is true.

Also "he was grifting off of this" will be helpful

This, however, won't. Look, Dominion, I get it - it's snake oil, he's a bad dude, etc. But you're not going to convince a court that you can show actual malice because he ran ads on a radio show.

Seriously - those ads may be relevant to damages. Drop in the bucket, but sure, why not, get 'im! But this doesn't belong at this point in the pleading because it takes away from the main thrust of what you should be arguing here: He knew he was lying (or at least had doubts)

Tying Rudy in to Powell and also really hammering home the difference between what Rudy was willing to say in Court and what Rudy was saying everywhere else

The complaint continues down this path, alternating court filings not talking about Dominion with public statements. It's 107 pages long so we're going to skim through, not go paragraph by paragraph.

Who remembers this conference?

This is a very nice bit of "no, Rudy, you don't get to argue our damages were really caused by Sidney Powell and crew - because you own that, too"

Woof, that kicker. I did not know about this Hannity hit before. And that "notified by Smartmatic in Frankfurt" claim is a very specific factual claim Rudy will need to back up

This will also help on actual malice - the Georgia hand count proved Dominion couldn't have been flipping votes there, and Rudy still doubled down. Plus they excommunicated Sidney - but kept making the same claims

Here's the next section - again, won't go paragraph by paragraph but this is terrific legal work: showing actual malice by showing Rudy knew to stay away from making these claims in court

Rudy's Barr fight (the first of many fights with a Bar, one hopes)

So let's talk about these. First of all, OF COURSE the lawyers wrote the declarations. That's not unusual - it's part of our job as litigators to take the facts our witnesses tell us and put them in a form that will be appropriate and persuasive in court

The identity redaction is an important point, ESPECIALLY if Rudy didn't know who the guy was. After all, Rudy had just excommunicated Powell as too crazy for the Trump team - so why is he suddenly trusting her anonymous witness?

Same with the other questions they ask. None of this is enough to show actual malice on its own, but it's definitely enough, in combination with Rudy being unwilling to make these claims in court, to let a jury conclude Rudy actually doubted whether this was true

Which means Dominion gets to do discovery, and THAT, my friends, is potentially explosive.

We're going to see a ton of privilege claims. Which means we're going to see crime-fraud motions asking the Court to pierce the privilege

And the outcome of those motions could have real, broader consequences about what we learn of the machinations of the Trump team in the post-election period.

My takeaway is that Trumpworld should be very concerned about this suit.

So all of this is very morally damning for Rudy and very likely irrelevant for a defamation claim that needs to show actual malice. There's no rule that says "you have to believe what the government told you" and no rule that says you can't have bad judgment about reputations

Seriously - Russel Ramsland is obviously anything but a reputable expert; the man is a loon. But Rudy believing him (and all this alleges is "Rudy says that he believed Ramsland over Michigan public officials") isn't actual malice

And "Rudy obviously failed to google Ramsland" doesn't get them there either

This battle of the experts thing isn't going to help them on their defamation claim, and they know it - which is why they point to the paper ballots. But it's important for them to mention anyway, as part of the public pushback on Ramsland

This is still missing any allegation that Rudy knew about the hand count results in Antrim, but they'll get to that in discovery

After going through the hand recounts, they wrap up this "Rudy must have known it was a lie" section pretty nicely, IMO

They then go through their publicly available corporate history (hey, we're not smartmatic) and how they've been harmed. Won't give every example of twitdiots tweeting idiocy. But these deserve mention - and will hit Rudy in the wallet

So, uh ...

That's gonna leave a mark

Seriously, "we threatened a lawsuit, he backed off, then started making the outlandish claims again when he thought we were bluffing" is pretty relevant evidence

This is a really well written paragraph and a great summary of the damage Rudy and Co have wrought

Then we have a whole section tying Rudy - and his dominion lies - to the violence on the 6th. Here's a taste

None of this stuff about the Capitol really has anything to do with either the defamation claim or their damages. They are just battering Rudy as hard as they can on how despicable all this was on a broader societal level.

I'm ok with that

This will be a fun area of discovery, though, especially into whether Rudy is willing to outright lie for political gain

And the close of the background facts section: We gave him one last chance to retract, and he refused

They then get into the defamation claims, listing 51 specific and separate statements Rudy made about Dominion that they allege are false and defamatory.

This is strong

And the damages request: 651M in actual damages and an equivalent amount in punitives. All in all, a strong, well-founded lawsuit that will survive a motion to dismiss, IMO