WILMINGTON, Del. (Legal Newsline) – Fox News has lost its motion to dismiss the defamation lawsuit filed by US Dominion Voting Systems that alleges the channel provided a platform for people to claim voting machines were rigged on Election Day 2020.
Dominion has responded to those claims with litigation, suing the likes of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and others. Its case against Fox News says the channel knew its guests were making false and defamatory statements on the air.
It also says Fox News hosts endorsed those allegations by repeating and agreeing with them, as well as republishing them on its websites and social media accounts.
In May, Fox News filed a motion to dismiss the case, which was denied on Dec. 16 by Judge Eric Davis of the Delaware Superior Court. The channel raised an anti-SLAPP defense, which argues Fox News’ conduct is protected by the right to free speech.
Judge Davis found Dominion was not subject to enhanced pleading standards for its allegations at this stage.
“Fox does not argue for a clear and convincing standard at this stage,” Davis wrote. “Therefore, the relevant question at this stage is whether, based on Dominion’s present allegations, it is reasonably conceivable that Dominion will establish actual malice by clear and convincing evidence at trial.”
Delaware’s pleading standard is “minimal,” Davis wrote, and dismissal is inappropriate unless the complaint fails to entirely to present its allegations adequately.
“Dominion pleads specific facts that put Fox on notice as to Dominion’s claims,” he wrote. “The complaint, and its exhibits, are detailed and focused, and state a reasonably conceivable defamation per se claim.”
Following Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election, some Fox News guests pushed a narrative that included fraud at the polls. Among them were former prosecutor Sidney Powell, who said on air there was “a massive and coordinated effort to steal this election from We the People of the United States of America, to delegitimize and destroy votes for Donald Trump, to manufacture votes for Joe Biden.”
Powell later filed litigation making that claim that failed to the point she is now facing sanctions in Michigan. Part of her attack on Dominion alleged it created voting machines that rigged elections for Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.
Dominion emailed Fox News after Powell’s performance to separate facts from rumors, but the company allegedly continued to promote known lies by Powell and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani.
The company continued emailing Fox News, with 59 election security specialists rebutting the claims made on Fox. Powell again was invited on Fox News, however.
“Despite Arizona and Georgia’s audits confirming the Dominion machines’ accuracy, Mr. (Lou) Dobbs and Mr. (Sean) Hannity again brought on Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell to assert their claims that Dominion rigged the election by changing votes in its machines,” Davis wrote.
“Mr. Dobbs previewed and endorsed why Ms. Powell returned to his show: She would ‘provide more details on how Dominion voting machines and Smartmatic software were used to help Joe Biden.’”
The issue continued to dominate Fox News in the weeks after the election, with the channel tweeting a promotion for Dobbs’ show calling the 2020 election “a cyber Pearl Harbor.”
“The leftwing establishment have aligned their forces to overthrow the United States government #MAGA #AmericaFirst #Dobbs,” the tweet said.
On Jan. 4, 2021, Dobbs said he still didn’t have evidence of “the crimes that everyone knows were committed.”
Lindell’s appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show on Jan. 26 was also an example of Fox News giving defamatory accusations a platform, Dominion says.