Dominion Voting Systems on Friday filed a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against conservative attorney Sidney Powell, who has made baseless claims that the company had a starring role in election fraud that helped Joe Biden defeat President Donald Trump in November.

In its lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., Dominion says Powell’s “wild” and “demonstrably false” allegations have caused “unprecedented harm” to the company.

Among the claims Powell has made, without evidence, in post-election news conferences and in media interviews are that Dominion’s voting software was developed in Venezuela at the direction of now-deceased President Hugo Chavez to rig elections there. She also accused Dominion of paying kickbacks to Georgia election officials for a no-bid contract.

The company said the evidence she has presented publicly was doctored documents and “declarations from a motley crew of conspiracy theorists, con artists, armchair ‘experts,’ and anonymous sources who were judicially determined to be ‘wholly unreliable.’”

Dominion accused Powell, a former federal prosecutor, of pushing falsehoods “to financially enrich herself, to raise her public profile, and to ingratiate herself to Donald Trump for benefits she expected to receive as a result of that association.”

The lawsuit names Powell, her law firm and Defending the Republic, the organization she set up to solicit donations to help fund her election-related litigation, as defendants.

In a tweet Friday, Powell wrote: “#Dominion’s suit against me & DefendingTheRepublic.org is baseless & filed to harass, intimidate, & to drain our resources as we seek the truth of #DominionVotingSystems’ role in this fraudulent election. We will not be cowed in exercising our 1st Amendment rights or seeking truth.”

Dominion says it is impossible to program its voting software to switch votes because the machines print a paper ballot, which is reviewed by the voter and can be used to audit election results. The company was founded in Canada, not Venezuela, and is now based in Colorado.

The Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the National Association of State Election Directors have described the election as "the most secure in American history,” adding there is “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

Dominion says in its lawsuit that disinformation spread by Powell and others alleging its machines were used to commit election fraud “has irreparably damaged Dominion’s reputation and destroyed the resale value of a business that was worth between $450 million and $500 million before the viral disinformation campaign.”

The company also says it has spent more than $565,000 on private security to protect its employees who have been stalked, harassed and received death threats as a result of Powell’s false accusations. 

Dominion CEO John Poulos told The Washington Post he would prefer to take the case to trial rather than settle. 

“We feel that it’s important for the entire electoral process,” he said. “The allegations, I know they were lobbed against us ... but the impacts go so far beyond us.”

Dominion has sent more than 20 letters demanding retractions and threatening defamation lawsuits against individuals, including Powel, and conservative media entities that have accused it or aired interviews accusing it of participating in a conspiracy to steal the election. 

In an interview Monday on Axios’ “Re:Cap” podcast, Poulos said Dominion’s legal team is looking at “every actor that has made these type of false accusations about us, and also the news media outlets that have allowed these allegations to be amplified unfettered and unchecked.” 

Poulos said then that the lawsuit against Powell was imminent. 

“She is by far, in our opinion, the most egregious and prolific purveyor of the falsities against Dominion,” he said. “Her statements have caused real damage. They’re demonstrably false.”

Powell had been working in concert with the Trump campaign as it challenged the results of the election. In late November, however, Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis released a statement disavowing Powell, but she was reportedly at an Oval Office meeting with Trump and others on Dec. 20 in which she and former national security adviser Michael Flynn floated suggestions for how to overturn the election.