Former Attorney General Bill Barr Subpoenaed in Smartmatic’s $2.7 Billion Defamation Lawsuit Against Fox News
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Voting technology company Smartmatic subpoenaed former Attorney General Bill Barr on Thursday, as part of its $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News.
Smartmatic is demanding Barr turn over all communications he had with the Fox News staff, executives, and owners. The voting technology company is seeking conversations regarding former President Donald Trump’s election campaign, the 2020 election, and Smartmatic after January 1st, 2020.
Barr is facing a similar fate in Dominion Voting Systems’ ongoing $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox. He was subpoenaed by Dominion earlier this month to testify, as the company attempts to show that the network, alongside Trump allies, intentionally spread false claims about election fraud and voting machinery.
Smartmatic’s subpoena additionally asks Barr to hand over any communication had with Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, the owners of Fox News’s parent company. The subpoena also requests access to communications that the former attorney general had with the House select committee, as well as documents he provided to their investigation of the January 6th Capitol riots.
Recently, in a clip shown during the fifth hearing of the House select committee’s investigation, Barr explained the importance of his Department of Justice reviewing and rejecting the voter fraud claims coming from Trump’s campaign. The former attorney general stated that he was “not sure we would’ve had a transition at all,” if it had not been for the DOJ.
Earlier this year, Judge David Cohen rejected Fox News’s appeal to dismiss Smartmatic’s defamation lawsuit. The New York judge did agree to toss out some claims including host Judge Jeanine Pirro but refused to do the same for host Maria Bartiromo and former host Lou Dobbs.
Information from Barr, who vocally contradicted claims of voter fraud coming from Trump’s campaign, could provide evidence helping Smartmatic further its case against Fox. Smartmatic looks to show the court that Fox intentionally spread misinformation about the company and its voting machinery.
Fox News continues to deny these allegations by Smartmatic, claiming that the First Amendment protects the network when airing clips by Trump and allies, who frequently took time to question the integrity of the 2020 election results.
“We are confident we will prevail as freedom of the press is foundational to our democracy and must be protected, in addition to the damages claims being outrageous, unsupported and not rooted in sound financial analysis, serving as nothing more than a flagrant attempt to deter our journalists from doing their jobs,” Fox News said in a statement.
