Defamation case against Fox News highlights role of its hosts in promoting 2020 election falsehoods

NEW YORK (AP) — Court papers in a voting technology company’s $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News point to Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro as leaders in spreading false stories about election fraud in the weeks after Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over President Donald Trump in 2020.

Arguments for summary judgment by Smartmatic were filed in lightly redacted form this week at the New York Supreme Court. It’s like a bad rerun for Fox: Similar revelations about its conduct following the 2020 election came in a lawsuit by another company falsely accused of doctoring votes, Dominion Voting Systems. Fox agreed to pay Dominion $787 million in a 2023 settlement after the judge found it was “CRYSTAL CLEAR” that none of the claims against the voting system company were true.

In short: Fox let Trump aides spread conspiracy theories despite knowing they were false because it was what their viewers wanted to hear. Fox was trying to hold on to viewers who were angry at the network for saying Biden had won the election.

Fox said it was covering a newsworthy story. It accuses the London-based company, which had only Los Angeles County as a client for the 2020 election, of exaggerating its claims of damages in the hope of receiving a financial windfall.

Pirro now working in the second Trump administration

The focus on Pirro is noteworthy because the former Fox personality now serves in Trump’s second administration as U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C.

Smartmatic, relying on emails and text messages revealed as part of the case, said Pirro was using her position as a Fox host in 2020 to help Trump and persuade him to pardon her ex-husband, Albert Pirro, who was convicted of conspiracy and tax evasion. Trump pardoned him before leaving office in 2021.

In a text to then-Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel in September 2020, Pirro said, “I’m the No. 1 watched show on news cable all weekend. I work so hard for the President and the party,” Smartmatic said in court papers.

One of her own producers, Jerry Andrews, called Pirro a “reckless maniac,” Smartmatic said. He texted after one of her shows in November that it was “rife (with) conspiracy theories and bs and is yet another example of why this woman should never be on live television.”

The court papers said Pirro also suggested “evidence” of supposed fraud to Trump lawyer Sidney Powell that she could use on a television appearance — material that also was spread by Bartiromo.

Bartiromo still works at Fox, and in 2020 had shows on both the news channel and Fox Business Network. The court papers uncovered messages showing her desire to help Trump: “I am very worried. Please please please overturn this. Bring the evidence, I know you can,” she texted to Powell.

Dobbs, whose business show was canceled by Fox in February 2021, texted to Powell four days after the election, saying “I’m going to do what I can to help stop what is now a coup d’etat in (its) final days — perhaps moments,” a reference to Biden’s victory. Dobbs died in 2024.

A central figure in Fox’s “pivot”

Smartmatic portrayed Pirro as a central figure in Fox’s “pivot” to deemphasize Biden’s victory because it angered Trump fans. Instead, the network found that ratings jumped whenever claims of election fraud were discussed, it said.

As in the Dominion case, the discovery process helped Smartmatic find messages and statements that seem embarrassing in retrospect. For example, in early December, Fox’s Jesse Watters texted colleague Greg Gutfeld that “Think of how incredible our ratings would be if Fox went ALL in on STOP THE STEAL.”

Fox, in a response to the newly-revealed court papers, pointed to an ongoing corruption case involving Smartmatic and its executives, including a claim by federal prosecutors that it used money from the sale of voting machines to set up a “slush fund” for bribing foreign officials.

“The evidence shows that Smartmatic’s business and reputation were badly suffering long before any claims by President Trump’s lawyers on Fox News and that Smartmatic grossly inflated its damage claims to generate headlines and chill free speech,” Fox said. “Now, in the aftermath of Smartmatic’s executives getting indicted for bribery charges, we are eager and ready to continue defending our press freedoms.”

Smartmatic has already settled similar defamation claims against Newsmax and One America News Network in relation to their post-2020 election coverage.

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David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.