Supreme Court rejects MyPillow CEO's defamation lawsuit appeal

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell to consider the defamation case lodged against him by voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems.

Driving the news: Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.3 billion lawsuit against Lindell in February 2021, alleging that Lindell — an ally of former President Donald Trump — helped promote the baseless conspiracy theory that the company's voting machines were rigged in favor of President Biden in the 2020 election.

The big picture: The Supreme Court's decision to not take up the case means that an August 2021 ruling by a federal judge, rejecting a motion by Lindell to dismiss the case and allowing it to go forward, will stand.

• Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson didn't participate in the decision.
• Dominion has argued that Lindell was well aware that his claims about the election were false and that “there was no real ‘evidence’ supporting his claims,” but that he participated in a "defamatory marketing campaign" against Dominion in order to sell more pillows.
• Lindell's lawyers, however, have argued that Lindell really believes his claims about Dominion to be true, per NBC News.

State of play: Dominion also filed defamation lawsuits against Trump allies Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell last year.

• Dominion also filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News in March 2o21. In June 2o21, a judge dismissed Fox's bid to throw out the case.
• U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, who ruled in Lindell's case in August 2021, also allowed the lawsuits against Giuliani and Powell to proceed.

Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional details.