Judge Carl Nichols of the US District Court for the District of Columbia denied Powell's and Giuliani's request on Wednesday, finding that Dominion had brought adequate claims against the them of intent to harm and that they had not adequately proven the court had no jurisdiction over them.
Dominion filed claims of defamation against both Powell and Giuliani in January after the lawyers claimed Dominion had participated in a conspiracy to fix the November 2020 US election so that Republican candidate Trump lost and Democratic candidate Joe Biden won. Seeking compensation for money spent on increasing security for its employees and for the loss of future business due to damage done to the company's reputation by their claims, Dominion sued both lawyers for $1.3 billion each.
The 77-year-old attorney and former mayor of New York lost his right to practice law in New York state in June, due to his continued claims of election fraud. More recently, the voting machine company has also brought suits against pro-Trump news outlets Newsmax and One American News for similar claims.
Repeated audits of the ballot counts in several closely contested states have not yielded evidence of fraud, and lawsuits filed by Trump seeking recounts or dismissal of results have all been thrown out by US courts.
Trump, who lost the November election to Biden by more than 7 million votes, refused afterward to concede his defeat, claiming it was fraudulent and that the election was being stolen from him. The "stop the steal" movement reached its climax on January 6, when immediately after a rally headed by Trump outside the White House, thousands of his followers stormed the US Capitol Building while Congress was in a special session to verify results of the Electoral College's votes, temporarily dispersing Congress but failing to capture or destroy the ballots. Five people died in the assault, including a Capitol Police officer and a rioter who was shot by an officer while breaking down the US Senate doors.
Trump was impeached on charges of encouraging the insurrectionists' actions, but was acquitted in a trial after he left office. He has refused to concede his defeat.