Judge Orders Swift Update in Mike Lindell, Rudy Giuliani’s Dominion Case

A judge has given a conservative broadcaster just five minutes at a hearing on Sept. 12 to explain a dispute that is holding up a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit.
Dominion Voting Systems is suing One America News Network (OAN), which allegedly claimed that its voting machines helped rig the 2020 presidential election in Joe Biden’s favor. The case is against Herring Networks, Inc., doing business as OAN.
The company is suing the network’s owners, Robert Herring, Sr., and his son Charles Herring, and OAN journalists Chanel Rion and Christina Bobb, as part of the same action. The lawsuit also includes Trump’s 2020 campaign attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, as well as two key Donald Trump allies – former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne and My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell.
All of the defendants allegedly claimed that Dominion rigged its voting machines in Biden’s favor, part of a conspiracy theory promoted by former President Donald Trump and many of his supporters.
On September 10, Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya noted that the plaintiffs and OAN defendants have three times submitted joint status reports on discovery disputes, but have still not resolved the difficulties.
“To resolve these disputes, the Court hereby orders the aforementioned Parties to appear…for a virtual discovery hearing by Zoom on Thursday, September 12, 2024 at 1 PM. For each of the disputes, each Party should be prepared to explain its positions in no more than five minutes,” a written order said.
Dominion is seeking over $1 billion in damages from OAN.
The broadcaster has been resisting some of Dominion’s discovery claims. The areas of dispute include a disclosure protocol that involves “specific disputes involving Dominion and OAN,” according to court documents.
Newsweek sought email comment on Wednesday from lawyers for Herring Networks, Rion and Bobb and comment from OAN directly. All of the defendants have publicly denied any wrongdoing.
Bobb has sought a partial stay on the case to prepare for her Arizona trial on charges of illegally seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election result. She denies the charges.
On August 7, Dominion filed a brief opposing a delay in the defamation case against Bobb.
“Forty-one months after Dominion brought its case, in April 2024, Bobb was indicted by the Arizona Attorney General in Maricopa County, Arizona. The 9-count indictment does not so much as mention the word ‘Dominion.’ Instead, it charges Bobb and 17 co-defendants with a conspiracy to submit a fraudulent slate of Trump/Pence electors from Arizona to Congress on January 6, 2021,” Dominion’s filing states.
In April, 2024, another voting machine company, Smartmatic, settled its lawsuit against OAN without disclosing the terms.
Smartmatic had claimed that OAN’s false accusations of vote rigging had cut its business value from $3 billion to $1 billion.
In September 2023, former Dominion official Eric Coomer settled his case against OAN and Chanel Rion for an undisclosed sum.