An election technology company suing Fox News for airing false claims about its role in the 2020 election notched a win yesterday, as a New York judge said much of Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation case against the network can proceed. There is “substantial basis” for the claim “that, at a minimum, Fox News turned a blind eye to a litany of outrageous claims about [Smartmatic], unprecedented in the history of American elections, so inherently improbable that it evinced a reckless disregard for the truth,” Judge David Cohen wrote in a 61-page ruling.
Smartmatic last year filed a suit against Fox News and Fox Business Network, naming current and former network stars Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro, and Lou Dobbs as defendants. The election technology company accused them of damaging its reputation and business with false claims broadcast in the aftermath of the 2020 election. The claims aired on Fox served to bolster Donald Trump’s democracy-defying attempt to explain away his loss to Joe Biden by blaming it on faulty or rigged voting machines. The suit—one of two massive defamation suits Rupert Murdoch’s empire is battling as a result of its conspiracy-addled election coverage—also targeted former Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, both of whom peddled pro-Trump conspiracy theories about Smartmatic's voting machines on Fox programs.
Cohen on Tuesday rejected efforts by Fox Corp, Bartiromo, and Dobbs to dismiss Smartmatic’s claims against them. Pirro, however,...
Russian military command has been lying for the fifth month in a row about battlefield “successes,” claiming that Russian forces are advancing west of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region. However, this...