It’s a pretty remarkable state of affairs when a judge is approvingly citing Tucker Carlson’s journalistic rigor, but that’s precisely the situation we find ourselves in now.
New York Supreme Court Judge David B. Cohen has now ruled that voting-machine company Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News and Rudolph W. Giuliani can proceed. The case involved numerous false and baseless claims made on Fox about voter fraud involving the company’s voting machines.
In the ruling, the judge notably dropped Fox host Jeanine Pirro and former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell from the lawsuit — Pirro because her statements didn’t so directly accuse Smartmatic of illegality, and Powell because New York doesn’t have jurisdiction over her.
But the case against Fox, its other hosts and Giuliani can proceed. And in allowing it to, the judge previewed a tough road ahead for them in this monumental defamation case.
The ruling repeatedly says Fox hosts, Giuliani and Powell made claims “without any evidence” and “without any basis.” It also says that claims made by Giuliani, Fox host Maria Bartiromo and now-former Fox Business host Lou Dobbs could meet the legal standard of claims being “so inherently improbable that only a reckless person would have put [them] in circulation.”
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