Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has asked a judge to throw out a voting machine company’s $US1.3 billion ($A1.7 billion) defamation lawsuit relating to his false claims about the November 2020 presidential election being rigged.

Mr Giuliani’s lawyer said in a court filing that Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, and because the company had not adequately justified its request for money damages.

The filing says Mr Giuliani denies defaming Dominion, adding the former New York City mayor would present a more forceful defence on the merits if his jurisdictional arguments were rejected by the federal judge in the District of Columbia who is assigned to the case.

Megan Meier, a lawyer for Dominion, said “Giuliani said he wanted to present the ‘evidence’ for his defamatory statements about Dominion, but now he’s trying to avoid a trial and still offering no evidence at all”.

Mr Trump and his allies spent two months denying his election defeat, and claiming without evidence that it was the result of widespread voter fraud, before the then-president’s supporters launched a deadly attack on the US Capitol on January 6.

Denver-based Dominion alleged in its January 25 lawsuit that Mr Giuliani “manufactured and disseminated the ‘Big Lie’, which foreseeably went viral and deceived millions of people into believing that Dominion had stolen their votes and fixed the election.”

Various Dominion machines were used in more than two dozen states during the 2020 election.

Dominion has similar defamation lawsuits pending against Fox News, former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, and pro-Trump businessman Mike Lindell of My Pillow. Like Mr Giuliani, they have denied defaming Dominion.

-AAP