(Headline USA) A settlement was reached Thursday in a defamation lawsuit brought by electronic voting machine manufacturer Smartmatic against conservative news outlet Newsmax for airing allegations of vote manipulation made by attorneys who were, at the time, representing former President Donald Trump in his challenges of the 2020 election results.
“Newsmax is pleased to announce it has resolved the litigation brought by Smartmatic through a confidential settlement,” Newsmax said in a prepared statement which was echoed in a similar statement by Smartmatic.
The terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but Newsmax has said Smartmatic recently dropped its damages claims by more than $1 billion.
The settlement assures that Smartmatic will not have to meet the burden of proving falsity in the election, which has long since become a moot point for many, with the next presidential election just weeks away.
Some might reasonably conclude, thus, that there was some validity to the claims leveled by Trump attorneys, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and conservative attorney Sidney Powell.
However, there is no such burden of proof on the part of the defendant, particularly a media outlet protected under the First Amendment, to prove the claims are true in a defamation lawsuit—only that one acted in good faith and had cause to believe they were at the time.
That means, the company, through its litigation, successfuly stalled any further scrutiny of its voting machines and software just long enough to make it inconclusive as to whether they did or did not manipulate the election outcome, while creating a costly nuissance for conservative media in the process.
However, it is unclear whether states are continuing to use the Smartmatic equipment following the recent federal indictment of three top execitives for a corruption scandal stemming from the 2016 election.
The settlement was announced just a few hours after jury selection began in the lawsuit filed by Florida-based Smartmatic against Newsmax.
Smartmatic claimed that Newsmax program hosts and guests made false and defamatory statements in November and December 2020 implying that Smartmatic participated in rigging the results and that its software was used to switch votes.
Newsmax argued that it was simply reporting on newsworthy allegations and that the lawsuit, thus, represented a threat to freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
Howard Cooper, an attorney for Newsmax, told Judge Eric Davis at a pretrial hearing last week that Newmax planned to question Smartmatic witnesses about why the company had previously sought damages of $1.7 billion, but was now claiming only $400 million.
J. Erik Connolly, an attorney for Smartmatic, told the judge that the company was asserting lost revenue opportunities valued at $369.8 million, based on the purported damage to its reputation from the Newsmax reports.
Connolly also told the judge that Smartmatic would be seeking lost revenue damages only for the period from late 2020 to August of this year, when three current and former Smartmatic executives—including founder and president Roger Alejandro Pinate Martinez—were indicted on criminal charges in Florida.
The indictments involve an alleged scheme to pay more than $1 million in bribes to put Smartmatic voting machines in the Philippines.
Newsmax argued that the investigation and indictment should be presented to jurors as alternative reasons for any purported reputational harm or economic loss that Smartmatic blamed on Newsmax.
The Delaware lawsuit, which centered on Newsmax reports over a five-week period in late 2020, is one of several stemming from reports by conservative news outlets following the election.
Smartmatic also is suing Fox News for defamation in New York. The company recently settled a lawsuit in the District of Columbia against the One America News Network, another conservative outlet.
“We are now looking forward to our day in court against Fox Corp and Fox News for their disinformation campaign,” Smartmatic said in Thursday’s statement. “Lying to the American people has consequences. Smartmatic will not stop until the perpetrators are held accountable.”
In response to Smartmatic’s statement, Fox said Smartmatic chose to settle with Newsmax because of a series of pretrial setbacks, including the Florida indictments and the subsequent reduction in Smartmatic’s damage claims. Fox also noted Davis ruled that Smartmatic would not be allowed to seek punitive damages.
“Smartmatic’s claims against Fox are similarly impaired, unsupported by the facts and intended to chill First Amendment freedoms,” Fox said in a statement. “We look forward to defending this case when it goes to trial.”
Dominion Voting Systems similarly filed several defamation lawsuits against those who blamed its election equipment for Trump’s loss. Last year, in a case presided over by Davis, Fox News settled with Dominion for $787 million.
However, there were several mitigating circumstances in Fox’s decision to settle, which do not imply that the reporting itself was false.
Among those was the leak of embarrasing text messages obtained during the discovery process that showed top Fox News personalities criticizing Trump.
The network’s corporate side—including Rupert Murdoch and his sons—also may have been less inclined toward conservative, pro-Trump politics than many of its viewers and guests, and its shareholders and advertisers—including the multi-trillion-dollar BlackRock fund, may also have exerted pressure on the company to settle due to its own interests in Dominion-linked companies and in the Biden administration.
In short, a massive stock buyup from BlackRock just weeks before the settlement may have given Fox the money it needed to make the lawsuit go away, resulting in a win–win for both parties, with only America’s faith in democracy losing out.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
