In a move to dismiss Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, the outlet blasted the voting company calling the lawsuit an attack on the First Amendment. Smartmatic filed a lawsuit against Fox News, Rudy Giuliani, and Sidney Powell for allegedly spreading false statements about the 2020 election as a plot to undermine the voting company’s reputation. Fox News maintains it had a responsibility to its viewers to report the news regarding the election and cannot be held responsible for what guest commentators say while on the network.
According to The Daily Wire:
“This lawsuit strikes at the heart of the news media’s First Amendment mission to inform on matters of public concern,” Fox said in its motion to dismiss, according to The New York Times. “An attempt by a sitting president to challenge the result of an election is objectively newsworthy.”
“The public had a right to know, and Fox had a right to cover, that the president and his allies were accusing Smartmatic (and others) of manipulating the election results, regardless of the ultimate truth or accuracy of those allegations,” Fox’s filing says.
In its lawsuit, Smartmatic claimed that Fox News and others orchestrated an election narrative that painted the voting technology company as “a Venezuelan company under the control of corrupt dictators from socialist countries” that was “responsible for stealing the 2020 election by switching and altering votes to rig the election for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”
“Defendants’ story was a lie. All of it. And they knew it. But, it was a story that sold. Millions of individuals who saw and read Defendants’ reports believed them to be true,” the lawsuit said. “Smartmatic and its officers began to receive hate mail and death threats. Smartmatic’s clients and potential clients began to panic. The company’s reputation for providing transparent, auditable, and secure election technology and software was irreparably harmed. Overnight, Smartmatic went from an under-the-radar election technology and software company with a track record of success to the villain in Defendants’ disinformation campaign.”
Smartmatic’s lawsuit against Fox News and others closely mirrors a similar defamation suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems.
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