Dominion Staffer Sues Trump Campaign: I Want My Life Back

Eric Coomer says he's had to go into hiding due to conspiracy theories about election 'rigging'
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 23, 2020 8:33 AM CST
Dominion Employee Sues Trump Campaign: I Want My Life Back
In this Aug. 30, 2018, file photo, Eric Coomer from Dominion Voting Systems demonstrates his company's equipment in Grovetown, Ga.   (Bob Andres/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File)

A high-ranking employee for a company that provided election equipment and software in 28 states has been subjected to harassment and death threats so alarming that he was forced to go into hiding a week after the election. Now, Eric Coomer says he wants his life back, and he's suing to make that happen. Colorado Public Radio reports that Coomer, the director of product strategy and security for Dominion Voting Systems, filed a defamation complaint Tuesday in Colorado against the Trump campaign and a slew of surrogates and conservative media outlets, accusing them of spreading conspiracy theories about a "rigged" election in favor of President-elect Joe Biden. "Defendants, by their actions, have elevated Dr. Coomer into the national spotlight, invaded his privacy, threatened his security, and fundamentally defamed his reputation across this country," the suit notes. Coomer tells CPR his family and exes have had their addresses posted online and received threatening notes.

Listed as defendants are the Trump campaign, lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, conservative media outlets Newsmax and One America Network, the far-right site Gateway Pundit, and conservative columnist Michelle Malkin, among others. Also named: Joe Oltmann, a conservative activist Coomer said jump-started the campaign against him by claiming he'd infiltrated an antifa phone call in which "Eric from Dominion" vowed to make sure Trump lost the election. No recording of that call emerged, but the defendants picked up on the Coomer rumors and spread them, Coomer alleges; Giuliani, for instance, called him "vicious" and "completely warped" at a presser, per the AP. Despite his suit, Coomer fears everything has gone so far that a return to normalcy may be hard: "While I intend to do everything I can to recapture my prior lifestyle, I have few illusions in this regard." (More Dominion Voting Systems stories.)

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