Fox News Drops Defiant Statement on Smartmatic’s $2.7 Billion Defamation Lawsuit, Defends Election Fraud Claims as ‘Newsworthy’
AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File
After settling with Dominion Voting Systems on Tuesday for a whopping $787.5 million dollars over alleged defamation claims, Fox News released a defiant statement on Wednesday ahead of its next major legal showdown.
Smartmatic, another voting systems technology company, is suing Fox News for $2.7 billion alleging defamation and charging that Fox “decimated” its business by spreading false information about its products and their use in the 2020 presidential election.
Fox released a statement on Wednesday, saying, “We will be ready to defend this case surrounding extremely newsworthy events when it goes to trial, likely in 2025. As a report prepared by our financial expert shows, Smartmatic’s damages claims are implausible, disconnected from reality, and on its face intended to chill First Amendment freedoms.”
The statement echoed many of the past arguments Fox made regarding the Dominion lawsuit, which included both claiming Dominion had way overvalued its worth in requesting $1.6 billion in damages and that Fox News had First Amendment protections related to reporting newsworthy accusations and protected opinion.
The judge in the Delaware courtroom where Dominion and Fox News were set to go to trial had the case not settled had issued preliminary rulings precluding Fox News from arguing that statements made about Dominion on-air were protected opinion or simply “neutral” newsworthy allegations.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis ruled, “The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that (it) is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.”
Smartmatic filed a nearly 300-page complaint in New York State Supreme Court in February 2021, alleging that Fox knowingly made “over 100 false statements and implications” about the company regarding Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in 2020.
Smartmatic attorney J. Erik Connolly released a statement after the Dominion settlement, saying, “Dominion’s litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox’s disinformation campaign. Smartmatic will expose the rest. Smartmatic remains committed to clearing its name, recouping the significant damage done to the company, and holding Fox accountable for undermining democracy.”
Fox News rebutted Smartmatic with two new court filings on Monday, highlighting a report concluding that Smartmatic’s damages claim as being “unfounded, implausible, and disconnected from historical performance. ”
“A damages claim so divorced from reality should be seen for what it is: a naked attempt to grab the kind of attention that will magnify the very chilling effect on free-speech and free-press rights that the Anti-SLAPP is supposed to guard against,” the filing reads, concluding:
Smartmatic’s litigation tactics, including its facially implausible damages claims, are a naked attempt to punish Fox News for exercising its constitutional rights, to censor and chill Fox News from such reporting in the future if and when that reporting includes coverage of allegations by public officials or attorneys against Smartmatic’s voting systems, and to intimidate Fox News and anyone else who might consider exercising their constitutional rights to cover allegations by public figures concerning Smartmatic or its voting systems that Smartmatic deems unflattering.
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