The Big Lie might cost One America News and Newsmax big bucks.
On Tuesday, Dominion Voting Systems filed a defamation lawsuit against the fledging right-wing networks, accusing them of pushing conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. OAN and Newsmax have suggested, without evidence, that Dominion rigged voting machines to steal the election from Donald Trump.
The lawsuit against OAN lists two of the networks’ personalities – Chanel Rion and Christina Bobb – as defendants, accusing them of spreading false claims about Dominion. The network “deputized” Rion “as an in-house spokesperson for all Dominion-related content,” according to the lawsuit. In one segment, she called a Dominion executive an “Antifa-drenched engineer hell-bent on deleting half of America’s votes.”
OAN also broadcast “Absolute Proof,” a ‘docu-movie’ produced by conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell alleging (but not proving) widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
After being warned of the lawsuit, OAN scrubbed many of the most incendiary content about Dominion from their website. They’ve threatened to countersue the voting hardware and software company.
Then there’s the suit against Newsmax.
“Newsmax helped create and cultivate an alternate reality where up is down, pigs have wings, and Dominion engaged in a colossal fraud to steal the presidency from Donald Trump by rigging the vote,” the suit against Newsmax says.
Dominion is seeking $1.6 billion in damages from each of the outlets. That eye-popping figure includes $1 billion in “lost enterprise value,” $600 million for lost profits, $600,000 for security expenses, and $700,000 for “expenses incurred combatting the disinformation campaign.”
On Tuesday, Dominion also filed a defamation suit against former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, who has pushed the Big Lie and has helped pay for the ‘audit’ of Maricopa County’s votes. The company had previously filed similar suits against Lindell, Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and Fox News.
Another voting machines company, Smartmatic, has also filed defamation suits against Giuliani, Powell, and Fox News. They’re also targeted individual Fox News anchors, including Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, and Maria Bartiromo.
