By Marshall Cohen | CNN
A major defamation case against Newsmax will proceed to trial later this month, a judge ruled Thursday, dealing a blow to the right-wing network and setting the stage for the 2020 election to be relitigated during the final stretch of the 2024 race.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis rejected Newsmax’s attempt to shut down the case, which was brought by the voting technology company Smartmatic, without even holding a trial. Instead, Davis concluded that key questions about Newsmax’s actions in 2020 would be weighed by a jury, barring a pre-trial settlement.
“Newsmax reported on allegations regarding the Election and Smartmatic, but there remains a dispute as to whether Newsmax recklessly disregarded the truth,” Davis wrote. “The jury must determine if Newsmax was doing what media organizations typically do — inform the public of newsworthy events—or did Newsmax purposely avoid the truth and defame Smartmatic.
The trial is scheduled to begin September 30. However, defamation cases like these are often resolved, even at the last minute, with an out-of-court settlement.
The rulings come weeks after a major hearing where Smartmatic argued that Newsmax knowingly peddled the debunked lie that its machines were involved in rigging the 2020 election against Donald Trump. Newsmax argued that its actions in 2020 were protected by the First Amendment because it was covering newsworthy attempts to contest the results.
In a partial victory for Newsmax, Davis kept alive one of the key defenses that the network hopes to present to the jury: that it was neutrally reporting on Trump’s election claims but was not endorsing them.
“With these facts, a reasonable jury could find Newsmax was reporting on a matter of public concern without endorsing the allegations surrounding the Election,” Davis wrote. “However, a reasonable jury could also find that Newsmax provided its viewers with a report of the newsworthy event but that the report was not a disinterested report of the newsworthy event.”
While neither side got everything they were seeking in Thursday’s rulings, the outcome is nonetheless a major blow to Newsmax. If the outlet doesn’t settle, its executives and on-air personalities could be forced to publicly testify about their contacts with Trump during the 2020 election and their controversial post-election coverage.
Newsmax denies defaming anyone. The right-wing network published and aired a “clarification” in December 2020 declaring that the network hadn’t uncovered any evidence that Smartmatic or another voting technology company, Dominion Voting Systems, ever “manipulated votes in the 2020 election,” despite what some guests had claimed.
“Newsmax’s own people knew they had no proof that Smartmatic was involved in any type of fraud involving the 2020 election, and yet they continued to peddle that false narrative,” Smartmatic lawyer Erik Connolly said in statement. “Newsmax must be held accountable to the fullest extent under law. We look forward to going to trial and presenting our case.”
Responding to the ruling, Newsmax said Davis hampered “the free press being allowed to do its job,” but praised his decision to let the network present evidence about Smartmatic’s past ties to Venezuela, which Trump’s allies used to smear the company in 2020.
“While Newsmax is disappointed that any part of Smartmatic’s lawsuit is going to trial, as we believe it is a threat to a free press, we are pleased that the Court found no evidence that Newsmax acted with evil intent toward Smartmatic and that the neutral and fair reporting privileges are available to Newsmax at trial,” network spokesman Bill Daddi said in a statement.
The judge also went out of his way to make clear that nothing in his ruling is meant to suggest that there was anything questionable or illegitimate about the 2020 election results. Smartmatic machines are not used widely in US elections – they were only in Los Angeles County in 2020.
“The factual record is clear that no one ever alleged that votes in Los Angeles were altered or manipulated or otherwise questionable,” Davis wrote. “Accordingly, statements regarding Smartmatic software or voting machines altering the results of the Election are factually false.”