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Fox News lawyers will soon receive new documents that could bolster their defense against Smartmatic’s defamation lawsuit over the 2020 election. Reversing a lower court decision, a New York appeals court ruled Tuesday that Fox News can obtain disputed materials about a separate federal bribery indictment against senior Smartmatic executives. The conservative cable network says the documents are crucial to its defense in the defamation lawsuit. Smartmatic, a voting technology company based in Florida, sued Fox News and its parent corporation in 2021, claiming that the network’s conspiracy theory-tinged coverage of the 2020 election destroyed its reputation. Numerous on-air hosts and guests promoted the debunked lie that Smartmatic machines rigged the 2020 results against President Donald Trump. Adding to its legal troubles, three current and former executives at Smartmatic were charged last year by the Justice Department with allegedly paying more than $1 million in bribes to secure a contract in the Philippines. The defendants in the bribery case have pleaded not guilty, and Smartmatic denies criminal wrongdoing. Fox has argued that if Smartmatic’s reputation was damaged, it was because of its controversial foreign dealings — not because of news coverage about the 2020 election. “We are pleased with the Court’s ruling that materials about Smartmatic executives’ indictments are ‘plainly relevant’ to its lack of damages,” Fox said in a statement on Tuesday. “The factual evidence shows that Smartmatic’s business and reputation were badly suffering long before any claims by President Trump’s lawyers on Fox News.” Lawyers from Fox News say the case threatens First Amendment press freedoms. They say the network impartially covered claims from Donald Trump’s lawyers about possible voter fraud. Smartmatic wants an even bigger payday than Dominion Voting Systems, which was similarly smeared by Fox News and settled a defamation lawsuit with the network in 2023 for a whopping $787 million. But the Dominion case established that Fox News executives, hosts, producers and fact-checkers didn’t believe the voter fraud claims that were being promoted on its airwaves. Smartmatic has expanded on this record to boost its own case, and its attorneys have argued that Fox’s on-air lies created $2.7 billion in damages. (Pro-Trump cable channel Newsmax settled a separate defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic for $40 million last year.) “The discovery that Smartmatic has already produced shows that Fox’s campaign of lies was the number one cause of Smartmatic’s injuries,” Smartmatic lawyer Erik Connolly said in a statement. “Fox trying to blame anyone other than itself for Smartmatic’s injuries is just more lies from Fox. The writing is on the wall. Lies have consequences.” Both Fox and Smartmatic have asked the New York judge presiding over the case to end the lawsuit now without going to a jury. Those motions are still pending. If there isn’t a settlement, the case could possibly head to trial by 2026.
