Pennsylvania". Of the three Appeal Court judges, Stephanos Bibas, who delivered the opinion, was appointed by Trump himself, while judges D. Brooks Smith and Michael Chagares were appointed by Republican president George W. Bush. Dominion and Smartmatic lawsuits As part of Giuliani's allegations that voting machines had been rigged, he made several false assertions about two rival companies, Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic. These false claims included that Smartmatic owned Dominion; that Dominion voting machines used Smartmatic software; that Dominion voting machines sent vote data to Smartmatic at foreign locations; that Dominion was founded by the former socialist Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez; and that Dominion is a "radical-left" company with connections to antifa. Both companies sued Giuliani and Fox News. Dominion filed a defamation lawsuit against Giuliani on January 25, 2021, seeking $1.3billion in damages, and separately sued Fox News for $1.6 billion. On February 4, 2021, Smartmatic also filed a lawsuit that accused Giuliani, Fox News, some hosts at Fox News, and Sidney Powell of engaging in a "disinformation campaign" against the company, and asked for $2.7billion in damages. A New York State Supreme Court judge ruled in March 2022 that the Smartmatic suit against Fox News and others could proceed, though he dismissed some allegations against Giuliani. On September 10, 2021, Fox News told Giuliani that neither he nor his son Andrew would be allowed on their network for nearly three months. Attack on the Capitol On January 6, 2021, Giuliani spoke at a "Save America March" rally on the Ellipse that was attended by Trump supporters protesting the election results. He repeated conspiracy theories that voting machines used in the election were "crooked" and called for "trial by combat", which he claimed after the riot had not been a call to violence but a reference to Game of Thrones. Trump supporters subsequently stormed the U.S. Capitol in a riot that resulted in the deaths of five people, including a Capitol police officer, and temporarily disrupted the counting of the Electoral College vote. Giuliani had reportedly been calling Republican lawmakers to urge them to delay the electoral vote count in order to ultimately throw the election to Trump. Giuliani attempted to contact Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a Trump ally, around 7:00p.m. on January 6, after the Capitol storming, to ask him to "try to just slow it down" by objecting to multiple states and "raise issues so that