The big lie that’s been circulating around right-wing circles and fomenting an insurrection is, of course, that there was massive election fraud and that Donald Trump was the winner of the 2020 election. But it isn’t true, and that matters.
Enter Smartmatic. They’re an election technology company that’s been targeted by Fox News, Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro, Rudy Giuliani, and Sidney Powell and painted as a bad actor that swung the election for Joe Biden (never mind that they only provided Los Angeles County election technology for the 2020 election). Again, this is false. But that hasn’t stopped the conspiracy theories. As one might imagine, this is an incredibly harmful lie to be spread about a company whose entire business model is securing free and fair elections. So, yeah, they’ve filed a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox, Dobbs, Bartiromo, Pirro, Giuliani, and Powell.
And my, oh my, the complaint starts out on a delightfully biting note:
The Earth is round. Two plus two equals four. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election for President and Vice President of the United States. The election was not stolen, rigged, or fixed. These are facts. They are demonstrable and irrefutable.
Defendants have always known these facts. They knew Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 U.S. election. They knew the election was not stolen. They knew the election was not rigged or fixed. They knew these truths just as they knew the Earth is round and two plus two equals four.
Defendants did not want Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to win the election. They wanted President Donald Trump and Vice President Michael Pence to win re-election. Defendants were disappointed. But they also saw an opportunity to capitalize on President Trump’s popularity by inventing a story. Defendants decided to tell people that the election was stolen from President Trump and Vice President Pence.
Hmmm, did someone use their quarantine to take a Master Class on engaging writing?
The lawsuit goes on to allege that, despite Smartmatic’s limited role in the 2020 national election, tales were spun about the company because a “story of good versus evil, the type that would incite an angry mob, only works if the storyteller provides the audience with someone who personifies evil.” And those lies “did more than just make Defendants’ money and jeopardize Smartmatic’s survival. The story undermined people’s belief in democracy.” The complaint then details what’s characterized as a “widespread disinformation campaign” and proceeds to list out the media campaign where the story was peddled.
This isn’t the first defamation case sparked by the 2020 election. Rival election technology company Dominion, which has also been falsely painted as having “stole” the election for Biden, previously filed lawsuits against Giuliani and Powell.
Read the full complaint below.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).