Fox to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million to settle election defamation lawsuit

Fox faces a similar defamation lawsuit by another voting machine company, Smartmatic, over the company’s work during the 2020 election.

Smartmatic’s attorney J. Erik Connolly, in a statement, said, “Dominion’s litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox’s disinformation campaign.”

“Smartmatic will expose the rest,” Connolly said. “Smartmatic remains committed to clearing its name, recouping the significant damage done to the company, and holding Fox accountable for undermining democracy.”

Dominion also has pending defamation lawsuits related to false claims about the 2020 election against Newsmax Media, One America News Network, Overstock founder Patrick Byrne, My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, attorney Sidney Powell and others.

Stephen Shackelford, a lawyer for Dominion, said outside the court Tuesday, “Money is accountability. And we got that today from Fox.”

“But we’re not done yet. We’ve got some other people who have some accountability coming toward them,” Shackelford said.

He did not respond when CNBC asked if he expected settlements in other defamation cases Dominion has filed.

Correction: This story has been revised to clarify that Dominion CEO John Poulos told reporters outside court that, as part of the settlement, “Fox has admitted to telling lies.” It has also been revised to indicate that Maria Bartiromo was among the planned witnesses in the case. A previous version misspelled her name.

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/18/fox-news-and-dominion-settle-election-defamation-lawsuit-judge-says.html