Fox News filed a motion for summary judgment Tuesday, attacking voting machine company Smartmatic’s demand for $2.7 billion in damages in its defamation suit against the conservative-leaning news channel.
In 2023, Fox News paid $787.5 million to settle a separate defamation suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems over its reporting on President Trump’s false claims of election fraud in 2020. But “Smartmatic is not Dominion,” according to the Fox News legal team.
Fox News’ filing in New York Supreme Court says the network’s coverage of Trump’s false election fraud allegations did not hurt Smartmatic’s business.
The Boca Raton, Fla.-based Smartmatic, which does business in 40 countries, countered that Fox News’ conduct has cost 100 people their jobs at the company and billions of dollars in asset value. The company filed its defamation suit in 2021.
But Fox News argued that Smartmatic already had a poor reputation, saying the company provided election services to a “corrupt regime in Venezuela for more than a decade” and “has always faced difficulties finding governments willing to work with it.”
“While Smartmatic claims scores of lost contract opportunities, there is no evidence that Fox News’s coverage caused a single former, existing or potential customer to refuse to do business with Smartmatic,” the court filing said.
Eric Connolly, an attorney representing Smartmatic, called Fox’s argument “a deflection.”
“This is exactly the kind of tactic you expect from an abuser,” Connolly said in a statement. “Rather than take responsibility, they try to blame the victim. They are attacking Smartmatic to distract from the central issue: they defamed the company and caused serious harm.”
Smartmatic was frequently mentioned when Trump’s lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell appeared as guests on Fox News and Fox Business Network programs in late 2020 and spread Trump’s erroneous charges that voting machines were rigged to throw the election to Joe Biden.
While Smartmatic was often mentioned in the Fox News coverage, the company was barely involved in the 2020 election. Smartmatic equipment was only used in Los Angeles County and in none of the swing states that decided the outcome, a fact that was communicated to Fox News at the time.
Fox News argued that reporting on allegations made by a sitting president and his lawyers was newsworthy and protected by the 1st Amendment. Many of those false claims were amplified by pro-Trump Fox News commentators such as Jeanine Pirro and Maria Bartiromo on their programs and through social media.
Smartmatic’s motion said Fox News journalists, hosts and executives — including Rupert Murdoch — acknowledged in private and in court depositions that they knew Trump’s claims were false. They continued to air them nonetheless to placate their conservative viewers, the motion added, showing reckless disregard for the truth.
“Their own fact-checking efforts disproved the accusation,” Smartmatic’s court filing said. “They also believed guests appearing on their shows to discuss the accusation were nuts, crazy and unreliable.”
Fox News’ court filing indicates that if the case goes to trial, the defense is likely to flood the zone with documentation of Smartmatic’s other legal problems over a number of years.
Smartmatic President Roger Piñate and two other employees were indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice in August for allegedly making illegal payments to a former Philippines elections commissioner in order to get its voting machines and services used in the country’s 2016 election.
Smartmatic has said that the case had nothing to do with voter fraud.
Earlier this year, Smartmatic settled a defamation lawsuit against right-wing outlet Newsmax, which also gave a platform to Trump’s falsehoods and did not acknowledge that Biden was president-elect for more than a month after the election was called.
