Newsmax will pay $67 million to settle a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems after the news organization claimed the 2020 election was rigged.
Dominion Voting Systems had previously settled a defamation suit against Fox News for $787 million prior to settling with Newsmax; both cases stemmed from coverage pertaining to the 2020 election, per NPR (National Public Radio):
In the lawsuit, filed in the months after the 2020 election, Dominion accused the cable news network of spreading false claims that the company’s voting technology had been manipulated to help Joe Biden beat Donald Trump. Like other right-wing news networks, Newsmax featured Trump allies who promoted these conspiracies, including former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell and supporter Mike Lindell of MyPillow.
Newsmax announced the settlement in an Aug. 15 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. According to the document, the network paid $27 million of the settlement on that day; the rest will be paid by January 2027.
In mid-April, Judge Eric M. Davis, who had presided over Dominion’s case against Fox News, ruled that all of the at-issue statements that aired on Newsmax were also false and defamatory. His ruling meant that, should the case have gone to trial, the jury would only have had to decide whether Newsmax acted with “actual malice,” whether Dominion should receive damages, and how much money it should get.
Leading up to the settlement, Dominion Voting Systems claimed that the charges of election rigging caused the company irreparable harm, complete with death threats against employees and lost revenue.
“We are pleased to have settled this matter,” a Dominion spokesperson said Monday morning.
Newsmax did not admit to any wrongdoing in a statement, claiming that its coverage of the 2020 election was “fair, balanced, and conducted within professional standards of journalism.”
“Newsmax believed it was critically important for the American people to hear both sides of the election disputes that arose in 2020,” it said, adding that Judge Davis ruled in a way that “strongly favored the plaintiffs and limited Newsmax’s ability to defend itself.”
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