A Manhattan judge ordered Fox News to start the process of turning over a trove of documents potentially numbering into the millions amid a defamation lawsuit against the news organization from Smartmatic, a company dealing in election-related technology.
Smartmatic was barely used during the 2020 elections across the U.S., but the company nevertheless showed up in pro-Trump conspiracy theories after the last election claiming — without real-world evidence — that systematic fraud unfolded. In connection to the same range of claims, Dominion Voting Systems — another elections technology company — also filed a defamation lawsuit targeting Fox, and reports recently revealed Dominion was in the process of taking depositions of high-profile figures at Fox like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. In the Smartmatic case, Law&Crime reports that Manhattan Judge David Cohen ordered Fox to provide Smartmatic with whatever the company handed over in the discovery process amid parallel proceedings stemming from the Dominion case, although the judge preserved the opportunity for further arguments over privilege and relevance in the context of specific materials.
Per Cohen’s order, Fox must start the process of handing over portions of the wide range of materials at issue on September 30, and fact discovery in the case must conclude by the last business day in March of next year. (“Fact discovery” is a period ‘in which the parties each disclose all “relevant” non-expert facts,’ as lawyer Brooke Myers Wallace explains.) Fox provided an estimate that it already handed over some 4.3 million documents — evidently including communications involving company personnel — in the Dominion case, although the company also complained about a supposed lack of appropriate free speech protection for Fox amid the discovery process. “Every incremental release is harmful to us from a First Amendment perspective,” Fox lawyer K. Winn Allen claimed amid discussions of handing over documents. At this point, both the Dominion and Smartmatic cases are heading to trial, with little — if any — signs of any kind of pre-trial resolution, meaning a settlement.
A follow-up conference was scheduled in the Smartmatic case for the middle of November. The Smartmatic lawsuit, which originally named a range of defendants including Fox News, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro, and Lou Dobbs, is seeking $2.7 billion in damages — a level of potential financial penalties for the company about which Fox has predictably complained. Edward C. Wipper, a lawyer for Smartmatic, accused Fox amid recent court proceedings of engaging in delay. “It’s about delay,” the lawyer said. “This is the strategy here.” He also expressed concerns about the potentially continuing spread of false claims about Smartmatic. “We’re going to be barreling into another election cycle where my client’s name is going to be besmirched,” the lawyer added in court, discussing potential outcomes if the sweeping case moved more slowly.
