Headlines about the impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump are displayed outside Fox headquarters in New York City in February. Spencer Platt / Getty Images hide subtitles
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Spencer Platt / Getty Images
Headlines about the impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump are displayed outside Fox headquarters in New York City in February.
Spencer Platt / Getty Images
A New York court should dismiss Smartmatic’s $ 2.7 billion lawsuit against the cable television network and some of its hosts, according to Fox News. Reporting on fake election fraud claims is protected by the first change. Fox also says the voting technology company has not confirmed its allegations of “real malice” related to its defamation claims.
Smartmatic accused Fox News To be part of a “disinformation campaign” that reinforced former President Donald Trump’s debunked claims that the 2020 US election had been rigged against him. In response, Fox News said that the coverage of Trump’s allegations was “correct and disinterested” and that he reported newsworthy allegations by the president.
The First Amendment protection, according to Fox News in its filing, “does not resolve if the allegations some find desperate or ultimately fail in court.”
Smartmatic disagrees with this story. While Fox News highlights the potential “chilling effect” the lawsuit could have on news agencies, the polling company has accused the cable television network of defamation and degradation.
“Without a real bad guy” in Trump’s defeat, Smartmatic said in his court complaint: “The defendants made one up.”
During the 2020 election, Smartmatic said, voting services were only used in one US electoral area: Los Angeles County. However, earlier this month it was discovered that Fox News made a name for the company 137 times within a period of approximately one month after the election, in its broadcasts and online.
In addition to criminal and other damages, the tech company wants a court to order Fox News and other defendants to completely withdraw false statements about Smartmatic. But Fox News is urging the court to dismiss the lawsuit as soon as possible, saying the specter of “billions in liability” is a threat to journalism.
The new round of submissions is the latest salvo in litigation That started when Smartmatic sued Fox News in early February. Fox News submitted Application for dismissal the lawsuit shortly after it was filed.
Smartmatic responded to Fox News’ application for dismissal earlier this month, and now Fox, along with high profile figures like Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro, and former host Lou Dobbs, have filed their responses to set aside the lawsuit.
Fox News announced the day after Smartmatic filed a lawsuit abruptly canceled Lou Dobbs Tonight, who ran on the Fox Business Network.
Another voting technology company, Dominion Voting Systems, filed its own $ 1.6 billion libel lawsuit against Fox News and others last month, the network said spread false claims that it was linked to election fraud during the 2020 election.
Both the Smartmatic and Dominion suits bear the name Sidney Powell, an attorney who worked with Trump on his spate of sterile legal action following his election loss.
In March Powell said about their fight to invalidate the 2020 election results“No sane person would conclude that the statements were really statements of fact.”
But during a December appearance on the Lou Dobbs Tonight, Powell appeared to be influencing Dobbs.
“We will be happy to provide your evidence to support your claim that this was a Cyber Pearl Harbor,” Dobbs Powell said recently Fox News submissions. “We already have tremendous evidence of fraud in these elections.”
According to Fox News, Dobbs was not guilty of defamation when he asked Powell to produce evidence to support their claims. Regarding the host’s comments on electoral fraud, the network said a “reasonable viewer” would not consider the comments to be Smartmatic-related, “particularly as Dobbs frequently invited guests to discuss non-Smartmatic allegations of electoral fraud . “
