Fox News Sues Voting Company For Suing Them For Too Much Money

Fox News has repeatedly tried and failed to get a defamation lawsuit filed against them by Smartmatic dismissed, so now they're going a new route. The network has filed an anti-SLAPP suit against Smartmatic, alleging that the exorbitant amount of money the company is seeking is an attempt to chill their First Amendment rights. This countersuit by Fox could actually go either way, and Farron Cousins lays out the possible legal outcomes from the new suit.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Fox news has repeatedly tried and failed to get the smart, mad defamation lawsuit that was filed against them dismissed. Although recently they did suffer a, you know, not suffer, but I guess, experience a minor victory when, uh, judge Janine Piero was actually dropped from of the defamation lawsuit. So that was a win for Fox. However, former host Lou Dobbs and current host Maria BARDA Romo are still listed in the smart medic, uh, uh, lawsuit, which of course is for over a billion dollars. Well, Fox news has said, you know what, screw it. We're gonna try a new route. The courts aren't buying any of our arguments to get the cases dismissed. So what we are doing now, Fox news says we have now filed a counter lawsuit against smart medic for suing us for too much money. Cuz again, smart medic is suing them for 2.7 billion as a very hefty per rice tag, right? I mean, even if you've got billions of dollars in the bank, 2.7 billion, it's a hell of a lot of money. So Fox news is using anti slap laws, which basically say that you can't just Sue a media outlet to shut them up. They're using those to counter smart, mad. And uh, as it says, they, they, they want the judge to uh, uh, make smart, mad, pay their attorney fees. And of course give them quote any further relief as the court deems just and proper.

But, but we haven't even ruled on the merits of the case yet. Right. See their in lies is the problem for Fox news. Yes, you can file this anti SLAPP lawsuit prior to the other one, the actual defamation case going to court. However, you're not gonna get any kind of official ruling on it one way or until the other case concludes. That's the problem just because you got sued for 2.7 billion doesn't mean you're going to pay 2.7 billion. Even if you are found guilty, right? Those amounts are going to come down significantly. I mean a honestly, no judge in their right mind is gonna award a 2.7 billion defamation lawsuit. Even the dominion one for 1.3 billion, I've repeatedly said, you're not gonna get 1.3 billion. You may get at most somewhere between two and 400 million. And even that is like probably what more than any of this would go for.

But you can't say that Fox until you get to the conclusion of the other one. Again, you can file the anti SLAPP suit. Sure. But it can't go anywhere because the other one is still pending litigation and the courts have repeatedly told you it's moving forward. Your arguments to get it dismissed are garbage. And unfortunately for Fox, they're pretty much using the same arguments to file this anti SLAPP suit. They're trying to say, Hey listen, we got a first amendment, right. To report all these things that were totally not true because you know, it was news. That may be true. But you also, as a media outlet, according to the law, you know, the defamation laws, you have a duty to, I guess you would call it evaluate, you know, a failure to do due diligence on what you're reporting can absolutely get you sued for defamation.

You can't just go out there and say whatever the hell you wanna say, even if it's just because it's in the news, just because somebody important said something happened, doesn't mean you get to go out there and report it as a fact. That's the problem that Fox news faces with this anti slap lawsuit. Now again, 2.7 billion is excessive. I'm not gonna sugarcoat that smart medic. It shouldn't have gone so big dominion, same thing. So that's a problem for you both, because that would probably be the only thing that could keep an anti SLAPP lawsuit alive. Now, if smart matter wants to be smart about it, come back and lower that amount, right? Say, okay, listen, we're gonna lower that down to about 500 mil. That's not overly excessive. So that again would be the smart move by smart Matt. But if you leave it at that 2.7 billion, this anti slap suit is likely to go forward. Not saying that it's gonna be successful, but it is probably going to create some headache for you in the future.