Smartmatic Sues Fox News and Top Hosts For $2.7 Billion
Smartmatic, one of the voting systems companies subjected to a torrent of conspiracy theories regarding the 2020 election, has filed a massive $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, top Fox stars Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro, as well as pro-Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.
The suit accuses Fox News, its hosts, and guests of running a “disinformation campaign” against the company.
That disinformation campaign, which included false statements about Smartmatic and another voting systems company, Dominion, was waged in service of the conspiracy theory that Donald Trump did not lose the 2020 election.
“The Earth is round,” the Smartmatic suit states. “Two plus two equals four. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election for President and Vice President of the United States. The election was not stolen, rigged, or fixed. These are facts. They are demonstrable and irrefutable. Defendants have always known these facts.”
The suit goes on to allege that in an attempt to create an alternate story to the reality that Joe Biden won the election, Fox and its fellow defendants cast Smartmatic as a villain.
“Defendants’ story was a lie. All of it. And they knew it. But, it was a story that sold,” the suit states.
Smartmatic had previously demanded the retraction of dozens of comments made on the air at Fox News and Fox Business. Fox responded to the demand by airing — on Pirro, Dobbs and Bartiromo’s shows — a fact check of false claims made by those hosts and their guests about Smartmatic.
Those false claims included the theory of a link between Smartmatic — which was involved in the 2020 election in just one county — and Dominion, as well as that Smartmatic is a Venezuelan company with ties to late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.
In a statement to Mediaite, Fox News called the suit “meritless.”
“FOX News Media is committed to providing the full context of every story with in-depth reporting and clear opinion. We are proud of our 2020 election coverage and will vigorously defend this meritless lawsuit in court,” the network said.
