OAN Sent Trump Lawyer Private Information on Smartmatic Employees After 2020 Election: Report

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File

Voting technology company Smartmatic is suing right-wing news network One America News for defamation, and new evidence points to a direct connection with former President Donald Trump.

According to a report by CNN’s Marshall Cohen, an email exchange dated January 8, 2021, between OAN president Charles Herring and Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, who is also being sued by Smartmatic as well as other individuals tied to Trump for spreading lies about the 2020 election, purportedly contained a spreadsheet full of passwords for employees of Smartmatic.

The court records don’t reveal how OAN obtained the spreadsheet; according to CNN, lawyers for Smartmatic alleged the possession of the information means OAN executives “may have engaged in criminal activities” by “appear[ing] to have violated state and federal laws regarding data privacy.”

Per CNN:

While Smartmatic’s public filings didn’t identify the sender or recipient of the email, court records from a separate 2020-related lawsuit confirm that Herring and Powell exchanged emails on the same date. The pair’s communications about the purported Smartmatic spreadsheet, which have not been previously reported, resurrect questions that have dogged OAN for years regarding its tendency to blur the lines between opinion journalism and brazen political advocacy.

Smartmatic is seeking billions of dollars in damages from OAN and Fox News after the networks falsely claimed that the company flipped votes during the 2020 election in favor of President Joe Biden. In a separate defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems, Fox News avoided a trial with a massive $787.5 million settlement.