Mike Lindell sued by former Dominion employee Eric Coomer for defamation

Eric Coomer, the former Dominion Voting Systems employee, is suing election conspiracist Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, for defamation.

Coomer filed the lawsuit in Denver District Court on Monday, the day before Lindell spoke at an election-denial rally at the Colorado Capitol.

The lawsuit claims that Lindell, along with his company MyPillow and his media platform Frankspeech, targeted Coomer as part of Lindell’s effort “to undermine faith in American democracy and enrich himself in the process.”

The lawsuit says Lindell based defamatory remarks about Coomer mainly on a single source, Joe Oltmann, an influential conservative Colorado podcast host and founder of the activist group FEC United. Oltmann originated a conspiracy theory about Dominion when he claimed that before the November 2020 election he infiltrated a conference call and heard a person he later claimed was Coomer say that he rigged the election against former President Donald Trump. This narrative was later amplified on national platforms, including through Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Frankspeech.

Coomer has sued Oltmann and other Trump-connected defendants for defamation based on claims similar to those in the Lindell suit. He has maintained that he was not on the supposed call Oltmann claims to have heard and did nothing to compromise an election. The defendants, including Lindell, however, intentionally and persistently defamed Coomer as a “traitor,” the lawsuit says.

Coomer lives in Colorado, and Dominion is based in Colorado.

“Dr. Coomer has had an onslaught of harassment and credible death threats issued against him; he is at risk in his home or in going to work; his presence puts his family, friends, colleagues, and his community in danger,” the lawsuit says. “The results of the Defendants’ ongoing conduct are foreseeable and obscene. This conduct is so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency. It should be regarded as atrocious and determined intolerable in a civilized community.”

Lindell was at the Colorado Capitol on Tuesday as the keynote speaker of an “election truth rally,” which also featured prominent Colorado election deniers such as Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters and state Rep. Ron Hanks. Lindell voiced baseless claims about the unreliability of elections during the event.

“You guys here in Colorado, you’re in a battle — you’re like the tip of the spear (against) evil of epic proportions,” he said.

Lindell was reportedly served with a lawsuit during the rally.

Claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent or compromised have been debunked by experts, courts and election officials from both parties.