An attorney for Smartmatic says the voting machine company is looking to get a couple of things from Fox News that Dominion Voting Systems didn’t in its $787 million defamation settlement this week.
“They need to get an apology, they need to get a full retraction,” attorney Erik Connolly told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday.
Connolly said Smartmatic has worked to build a global reputation for 20 years ― and an apology and retraction are essential to regaining that reputation.
“They’re in that business for the long haul, they’re not looking to get out of that business,” the lawyer said. “This is a family-owned business that spent their whole lives building this.”
He called Dominion’s $787 million “a good start,” but indicated Smartmatic expects to get even more.
Smartmatic is suing Fox News, former host Lou Dobbs, current network personalities Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro, and former Donald Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani for $2.7 billion.
A complaint filed in 2021 says Fox News claimed Smartmatic stole the election 13 times in November and December 2020.
“Defendants’ story was a lie,” the suit stated. “All of it. And they knew it. But, it was a story that sold.”
Various Fox News personalities and executives have admitted in documents released during the Dominion case that they knew there was no evidence to back the claims made by Trump and those around him. But the network aired them anyway.
Fox News told ABC this week that “Smartmatic’s damages claims are implausible, disconnected from reality, and on its face intended to chill First Amendment freedoms.”
See Connolly’s full interview with Tapper below: