The right-wing network Newsmax will pay $67m to a voting technology firm over outright false claims it made about United States President Donald Trump‘s 2020 election loss.
The settlement of the defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems was announced in a filing by Newsmax on Monday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Under the settlement agreement, Newsmax said it had paid Dominion $27m on Friday and would pay $20m in 2026 and the final $20m in 2027.
The Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News settled a similar defamation lawsuit with Dominion in 2023 for the larger sum of $787.5m.
The settlement came as Trump vowed in a social media post on Monday to eliminate mail-in ballots and voting machines such as those supplied by Dominion and other companies. But it was unclear how the Republican president could achieve that.
Dominion filed a defamation suit against Newsmax in 2021 over false claims that its voting technology was used to rig the 2020 US presidential election, in which Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump. Dominion sought $1.6bn in damages.
In a statement, Newsmax said it had agreed to settle because it did not believe it would receive a fair trial.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis had ruled earlier that Newsmax defamed Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems by airing false information about the company and its equipment. But Davis said he would leave it to a jury to eventually decide whether that was done with malice, and, if so, how much...
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