In a court filing comparing her to a Buddhist monk, Sidney Powell’s attorney asked a New York state judge to dismiss the $2.7 billion defamation suit filed by Smartmatic against her for her repeated statements claiming the company conspired to flip votes against Donald Trump, Business Insider reports.
According to the filing by attorney Howard Kleinhendler, Powell also didn’t use her appearances on Fox News as “infomercials” to raise money for herself or her organization funding her election fraud claims, Defending the Republic, even though she frequently asked for donations to the group while she made appearances on the supposed news network.
“Powell’s Fox News interviews were about election integrity, evidence of election fraud, and her intention to take legal action to bring the malfeasance to light,” the filing said. “Her appearances were not informercials [sic] promoting her law firm or DTR’s websites.”
Powell’s filing also argues that Smartmatic has no standing in New York State to sue her, claiming the suit is filed in the wrong jurisdiction even though Fox News offices and studios are located in downtown Manhattan.
“Plaintiffs ask this Court to assert personal jurisdiction over Powell because her words were broadcast world-wide by Fox news from New York and maybe, as a result, some New Yorkers sent money to a Texas not-for-profit corporation called Defending the Republic,” Kleinhendler wrote. “According to this theory, a Buddhist monk shrouded in red robes high atop the Himalayas demanding Tibetan independence from China can be haled into this Court for defamatory statements against the Communist government.”
Rudy Giuliani’s attorney also claimed that the New York court was an inappropriate venue for the lawsuit. His attorneys also made the argument that an “ordinary listener/reader” could never take Giuliani’s statements about a Venezuelan company trying to undermine the elections to mean Smartmatic, given that Smartmatic is incorporated in the UK and the Netherlands.
Giuliani is on video frequently stating that Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic were in cahoots to overthrow the results of the election through manipulation of Smartmatic software that sent the results of ballots overseas. He also discusses Dominion and Smartmatic as though they are one company.
An issue the attorneys for Giuliani and Powell fail to address is that for all their claims about Smartmatic attempting to defraud officials in various states, Smartmatic software was used in only one jurisdiction in the United States: Los Angeles (California) County.