MIAMI (AP) — Voting technology company Smartmatic is seeking to dismiss a criminal money laundering complaint, accusing President Donald Trump and his allies of seeking to sue the company as part of a “revenge campaign” against those blamed for his 2020 election loss.
Smartmatic’s parent company, UK-based SGO Corporation, was named in a criminal indictment last fall after accusing several executives of paying $1 million in bribes to Philippine election officials.
In a motion to dismiss the indictment filed Tuesday, Smartmatic’s attorneys said the company has been cooperating with the Justice Department since first learning of its investigation in 2021, including providing millions of pages of documents and giving presentations to federal agents. Trial dates have been set for executives, including co-founder Roger Pinat, and the company believes everything is going well.
But when Trump returned to the White House, the Justice Department changed course and decided to bring charges against Smartmatic. Lawyers for the company said the decision was prompted by Trump’s demands to prosecute his perceived enemies and his “mantra” that Smartmatic helped rig the 2020 U.S. presidential election won by Joe Biden – allegations that are at the center of Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion lawsuit against the president’s media allies.
“The prosecution of the SGOs further reinforces their collective false claim that President Trump did not, in fact, lose the 2020 election,” Smartmatic said in a filing in Miami federal court.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lawyers likened the prosecution to the Justice Department’s prosecution of Kilmar Armando Ábrego García, a Salvadoran immigrant who was criminally charged for his conduct years ago after successfully suing the Trump administration’s decision to deport him.
In the years since the election, Smartmatic USA has exercised its right to hold these individuals and entities legally responsible for numerous defamatory statements and the consequent harm to their business, making them targets of retaliation. “
The criminal case against Smartmatic and its employees stems from payments made between 2015 and 2018 that were allegedly made to obtain contracts with the Philippine government to help with the country’s 2016 presidential election. Pinat, who no longer works for Smartmatic but remains a shareholder, has pleaded not guilty.
As part of the criminal case, prosecutors in August asked the court for permission to present evidence that they believe proceeds from a $300 million contract with Los Angeles County to help modernize its voting system were diverted into a “slush fund” controlled by Pinat through the use of overseas shell companies, fake invoices and other means.
They also accuse Pinat of secretly bribing Venezuela’s longtime election chief to provide her with a mansion in Caracas with a swimming pool. Prosecutors said the house was handed over to election chiefs as part of an effort to mend ties following Smartmatic’s sudden exit from Venezuela in 2017, when the company accused the government of then-President Nicolas Maduro of manipulating rubber-stamp electoral statistics for the Constituent Assembly.
Smartmatic was founded more than two decades ago by a group of Venezuelans who enjoyed early electoral success during the administration of the late e-voting enthusiast Hugo Chavez. The company later expanded globally, providing voting machines and other technology that helped conduct elections in 25 countries from Argentina to Zambia.
But Smartmatic said its business has struggled after Fox News gave Trump’s lawyers a platform to paint the company as part of a conspiracy to steal the 2020 election.
Fox said it was lawfully reporting on newsworthy events, but ultimately aired an article rebutting the accusations after Smartmatic’s lawyers filed a complaint. Still, the company aggressively defended itself against the defamation lawsuit in New York, arguing that it faced imminent collapse due to its own internal misconduct rather than any negative publicity.
