Trump campaign, supporters sued for defamation by Dominion Voting Systems employee after election accusations

A top employee for Dominion Voting Systems has sued the Trump campaign and the president’s supporters for defamation over election conspiracy theories.

Eric Coomer has reportedly been forced into hiding since being falsely accused by right-wing operators of using his position at the company to help steal the election for Joe Biden.

Mr Coomer, director of product strategy and security for the Denver-based company, has now filed a lawsuit in Colorado against the Trump campaign, Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani.

Also named in the lawsuit are Newsmax and One America News Network, OANN reporter Chanel Rion, blogger Michelle Malkin and others.

Mr Coomer's suit, filed in Colorado state district court in Denver on Tuesday, accuses them of spreading falsehoods and causing intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy.

In court papers Mr Coomer says he has been subject to death threats, harassment, and “untold damage to his reputation as a national expert on voting systems.”

He remains in an undisclosed location for his personal safety, according to reports.

“I have filed a lawsuit in Colorado in an effort to unwind as much of the damage as possible done to me, my family, my life, and my livelihood as a result of the numerous false public statements that I was somehow responsible for 'rigging' the 2020 presidential election,” said Mr Coomer in a statement.

“The widespread dissemination of false conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election has had devastating consequences both for me personally and for many of the thousands of American election workers and officials, both Republican and Democratic, who put aside their political beliefs to run free, fair, and transparent elections. Elections are not about politics; they are about accurately tabulating legally cast votes.”

Mr Trump and his surrogates have falsely claimed ballot fraud in battleground states that the president lost.

But they have failed to produce any supporting evidence and have been defeated in courtrooms across the country and rebuffed unanimously by the Supreme Court.

Earlier this month Dominion Voting Systems has demanded that Ms Powell retract her "wild, knowingly baseless and false accusations”about the company’s voting machines.

They have been at the centre of right-wing conspiracies in the election’s aftermath.

In a letter dated 16 December, the company slammed the “coordinated media circus and fundraising scheme” helmed by Ms Powell and others that has put the company’s “employees’ lives at risk and caused enormous harm to the company.”

“Your outlandish accusations are demonstrably false,” the letter says, pointing out that Ms Powell’s allegations about the company have not been made in court, “effectively denying Dominion the opportunity to disprove” her litigation’s “false accusations.”