Oh yeah, libel per se is a -bitch- if you're nailed with it. In libel per quod ("lost-cause libel"), you have to prove damages. Generally, this is what prevents people from filing lawsuits every time someone calls them a dick on 4chan.

Libel per se is different. Oh, it is SO different. Libel per se means y'all fucked up. Y'all fucked up BAD. In LPS, what you printed was such bullshit and so obviously damaging, the plaintiff don't have to prove SHIT; they sort-of name a figure and the judge works from that.

In the case of Dominion, I'm 99% certain it'll be LPS. Also, the Gold Standard defense against libel -- what you printed is actually true -- will not apply here, and it'd be comedy gold if the defendants actually tried this defense. At that point, the three fastest winds ever recorded on the planet would be Typhoon Li, Hurricane Katrina and the explosive laughter and legal pimp slap from the bench. It'd make Rudy's immense clusterfucks in court seem like goddamn Perry Mason cross-examining a 6-year-old.

It gets better.

So, on the billion-to-one chance you win a libel per quod suit, you get "damages", which can be surprisingly little as you have to prove every single dollar in very narrow legal ways. Libel per se, on the other hand, is the BIG PRIZES. Your ass is at least catching dollar damages that would make Jerome Powell say "Y'all niggas need to tone them digits down, yo!". Those damages are ANYTHING THE COURT DECIDES. Again, LPS means the plaintiff doesn't have to prove a single dime of loss to claim damages of damned near any amount. Given that Dominion is asking for a cool bil-point-something, I wouldn't be hugely surprised if another zero wasn't slapped on the end of that figure.

That's just the "actual" damages. If you egregiously fucked up, like claiming a company overthrew a US election and was in league with a dead dictator, you get to spin the wheel of punitive damages. Punitive damages are how the court hands out spankings, only they're not spankings, they're that scene from 12 Years A Slave, only with less tickles and kittens. Given the shitstorm that followed the lies about Dominion, those damages could make the initial billion-dollar claim look quaint.

(By the way, you can't discharge the settlement in bankruptcy, given that libel per se is considered 'malicious', meaning the laughter from the judge presiding over your initial case will be roughly 1/10,000th the laughter coming from the bankruptcy judge.)

If I was Newsmax, OAN, Fox News, Rush or Alex, I'd be lawyering up but good, because the Wrath of Fucking God is coming and there ain't no rock big enough to hide behind.

Couldn't happen to a nicer group of traitorous, America-hating, back-stabbing cocksuckers (and good luck to them on their per quod claim should they decide to sue me over the previous statement).

The catch 22 is that Rudy HAS to defend himself by arguing that his claims were the truth. Any other defense is an admission that the fraud claims were all lies.