Smartmatic Sues Fox News & Hosts Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro & Maria Bartiromo For $2.7 Billion

Legal experts are weighing in on Smartmatic voting system’s $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox News and hosts Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro and Maria Bartiromo. Experts believe it poses a real danger to the media company. CNN legal analyst Ellie Honig claimed that “this lawsuit is a legitimate threat — a real threat.”

Nonetheless, Fox News remains firm in its stance that the suit is “meritless.”

However, many experts have endorsed the legitimacy of the suit, and dismissed the notion that it could merely be a “nuisance suit.” “Libel suits against media organizations are typically filed on a slippery slope,” said correspondent Brian Stelter. “Journalists have good reason to be concerned about these types of cases. And nuisance lawsuits against newsrooms are a real problem. But I think it’s safe to say that Smartmatic’s action against Fox is not a nuisance suit, and it has little to do with news. It’s going to be hard for Fox to wrap its hosts in a press freedom flag. This case is about entertainers who gave fuel to lies in a desperate bid to keep Trump in power.”

When discussing the importance of the suit, Smartmatic’s lawyer Erik Connolly said, “I think it’s the type of case that has to be brought right now to try to get us away from disinformation. Disinformation has a free rein right now. This kind of case can be a shot across the bow that courts can deliver that says, ‘Let’s get back to reality. Let’s get back to factual reporting.'”

Recently, Smartmatic has been dealing with threats against employees, cyber attacks and drastic revenue losses due to the conspiracy theories being lodged against them by Trump loyalists. “The disinformation campaign that was launched against us is an obliterating one,” Smartmatic CEO and founder Antonio Mugica claimed. “For us, this is existential, and we have to take action.”

Article by Elizabeth Letsou