I have some tangential experience with this kind of thing that I hope helps you understand what is and is not going on here. I do not know anything beyond what is publicly available.

Let's take a close look at this.

We received a lengthy letter from Dominion's defamation lawyers explaining why they believe that their client has been the victim of defamatory statements. Having considered the full import of the letter, we have agreed to their request that we publish the following statement:

What you are about to read was literally written by Dominion's lawyers. This is not uncommon in situations like this. It does not make what follows true or untrue, but it is not in and of itself sinister.

American Thinker and contributors Andrea Widburg, R.D. Wedge, Brian Tomlinson, and Peggy Ryan have published pieces on www.AmericanThinker.com that falsely accuse US Dominion Inc., Dominion Voting Systems, Inc., and Dominion Voting Systems Corporation (collectively "Dominion") of conspiring to steal the November 2020 election from Donald Trump. These pieces rely on discredited sources who have peddled debunked theories about Dominion's supposed ties to Venezuela, fraud on Dominion's machines that resulted in massive vote switching or weighted votes, and other claims falsely stating that there is credible evidence that Dominion acted fraudulently.

The Venezuelan tie was one of the things that raised red flags for me. Weird things can be true, everyone who didn't know that before certainly knows that after 2020, but that one gave me pause. It smelled of desperation. Early on I believe I noted on these pages that I considered Sydney Powell to be credible. This is where I began to think otherwise.

And to be honest, and I think I've said this as well, Giuliani jumped the shark with me some time ago.

These statements are completely false and have no basis in fact. Industry experts and public officials alike have confirmed that Dominion conducted itself appropriately and that there is simply no evidence to support these claims.

This is an extremely strong statement. Again, written by Dominion's lawyers, but consider that they had the legal leverage against the American Thinker to publish this.

It was wrong for us to publish these false statements. We apologize to Dominion for all of the harm this caused them and their employees. We also apologize to our readers for abandoning 9 journalistic principles and misrepresenting Dominion's track record and its limited role in tabulating votes for the November 2020 election. We regret this grave error.

As I mentioned at the start, I have some broad familiarity with this. This part I think was possibly added by Dominion's leadership. There is an element of vindictiveness in this, a desire that the American Thinker be publicly humiliated.

I've already seen comments on Twitter suggesting that they were threatened into doing this.

Of course they were threatened into doing this, but that's not the point, the point is that the lawyers at the American Thinker made a calculus and that calculus was that they had to print that statement.

There are enormous protections afforded the press, and libel is typically a very high bar to clear. Their lawyers clearly thought Dominion cleared that bar.

I have not seen this gain much traction in the press yet. The post itself is buried in the American Thinker's blog, which means they were not forced to, or perhaps refused to, splash it on their landing page. But I would expect to hear more about this, and similar actions, going forward.

The real hazard is that conservative voices that maybe got out over their skis on this one will be bludgeoned into silence.

That would be a real tragedy, because there was so much about this election that was unfair, starting with Big Tech and Big Media's efforts to silence opposition to Biden and drive the narrative in his favor.

Regardless, it's a cautionary tale regarding the battles you pick.