AP Photo/Mary Altaffer
According to a just-filed petition, Fox News is requesting public records from Los Angeles County regarding the relationship between voting technology company Smartmatic and county officials, alleging to have obtained “indications” the company engaged in misconduct tantamount to bribery.
Fox faces a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic over allegations it promoted President Donald Trump’s stolen election lies in the wake of 2020. Fox News settled a similar lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems for $787 million in 2023.
In the petition, Fox’s legal team argued that Justice Department filings include allegations which indicate that Smartmatic’s most senior executives engaged in potential misconduct in its contracting with L.A. County.
From the filing:
¶ 1: “Fox News files this amended petition to obtain public records relating to the relationship between certain L.A. County officials and the election systems company Smartmatic, and the process by which Smartmatic was awarded the contract to build voting equipment for and run Los Angeles’s federal, state, and local elections. Both Smartmatic executives and parts of the
L.A. County government have been the subject of recent and extensive allegations of corruption in government contracts. … Since Fox News filed its original petition, subsequent productions by L.A. County and recent U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filings have revealed stark indications that Smartmatic’s most senior executives engaged in some of the same patterns of misconduct in Smartmatic’s contracting with L.A. County as they have been accused of elsewhere. Specifically, it now seems irrefutable that: (a) Smartmatic executives provided items of value that were knowingly in excess of the statutory maximums to the L.A. County official who helped Smartmatic obtain the lucrative contract that he now oversees; (b) the official failed to disclose those benefits as required; and (c) based on allegations by federal prosecutors, Smartmatic executives have funneled taxpayer dollars from Smartmatic’s L.A. County 2020 election contract to a “slush fund” held by a “shell company” that they used in the same pattern of misconduct that is the subject of federal indictments for bribery in obtaining and maintaining Smartmatic’s contracts in the Philippines.”
On Monday the Miami Herald reported that Smartmatic co-founder Roger Piñate faces bribery and money laundering charges related to contracts obtained in the Philippines. The Herald’s Antonio María Delgado wrote:
Federal prosecutors in South Florida allege that Venezuelan-American tech executive Roger Piñate — co-founder of the voting technology company Smartmatic — secretly bribed Venezuela’s longtime elections chief, Tibisay Lucena Ram
írez, by transferring control of a luxury residence in Caracas to her in exchange for political favors.The alleged bribe, according to prosecutors, was intended to help Smartmatic secure Lucena’s help in a commercial dispute with the Venezuela government, following the company’s August 2017 accusation that the Nicolás Maduro regime committed fraud in the National Constituent Assembly election—a claim that led Smartmatic to cease operations in the country.
Mediaite has reached out to Smartmatic for comment and will update accordingly upon reply.