The news network countersues the voting machine maker : NPR

Voters cast their ballots Election Working day in 2020 in East Los Angeles. Smartmatic claims it can be the only county they have been working in for the presidential election, but Fox Information talked about the corporation 137 times in a thirty day period afterward as President Trump and his allies pressed baseless statements of a rigged election.

Damian Dovarganes/AP

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Damian Dovarganes/AP

Voters forged their ballots Election Day in 2020 in East Los Angeles. Smartmatic states it is the only county they have been running in for the presidential election, but Fox News outlined the firm 137 moments in a thirty day period afterward as President Trump and his allies pressed baseless claims of a rigged election.

Damian Dovarganes/AP

Fox News on Thursday submitted a counterclaim from voting equipment company Smartmatic, declaring the company’s declare that it endured $2.7 billion in losses is massively inflated.

Fox News argues it warrants punishment beneath guidelines, regarded as anti-SLAPP laws, that are made to protect the media from abusive litigation. The information network seeks payment of its attorneys’ costs and “other and additional aid as the Court deems just and appropriate.”

A report that Fox News had created by College of Chicago business law professor Daniel Fischel found that Smartmatic experienced sustained tens of millions of bucks in losses in the several years main up to the election. Yr-over-calendar year progress of almost 75{e421c4d081ed1e1efd2d9b9e397159b409f6f1af1639f2363bfecd2822ec732a} would be essential to achieve the quantity it really is in search of from the news network, the report said.

“When the recovery of expenses and expenditures will not undo all the harm this First Modification-defying lawsuit has wrought,” the lawsuit suggests, “at least it could trigger the upcoming plaintiff to think 2 times right before trying to penalize the press to the tune of billions of dollars in nonexistent damages.”

Smartmatic’s lawsuit, submitted in February 2021, stemmed from the network’s protection of fraud claims — which experienced no basis in point — by President Donald Trump and his allies adhering to the 2020 election, as nicely as viewpoints voiced by some of Fox News hosts. The business argues that coverage amounted to keen participation in a disinformation campaign that hurt Smartmatic’s small business prospective buyers.

Fox News has maintained that it was within its To start with Modification rights to deal with the president’s claims — nevertheless courts consistently have refused to dismiss Smartmatic’s lawsuit on those people grounds, as just lately as March 9.

“It is ironic that Fox statements that Smartmatic’s lawsuit is with no basis after the Court identified that the lawsuit had a significant foundation in legislation and truth,” Smartmatic attorney J. Erik Connolly claimed in a assertion in reaction to Fox’s submitting on Thursday. “The selections of courts across the country concerning these defamatory statements talk for them selves and, the courts are indicating one thing incredibly distinctive than Fox.”

This isn’t the only these types of lawsuit that Fox New is preventing: Dominion Voting, another producer of voting equipment, has also sued the information community.