Newsmax pays $67 million to settle defamation case linked to 2020 election coverage
Newsmax will pay $67 million to settle one of the last outstanding defamation lawsuits against a news organization for airing false claims that the 2020 election was rigged.
Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems – the same voting-technology company that had received a $787 million settlement from Fox News over its election coverage – brought the lawsuit against Newsmax. A trial was scheduled to begin in October.
In the lawsuit, filed in the months after the 2020 election, Dominion accused the cable news network of spreading false claims that the company’s voting technology had been manipulated to help Joe Biden beat Donald Trump. Like other right-wing news networks, Newsmax featured Trump allies who promoted these conspiracies, including former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell and supporter Mike Lindell of My Pillow.
Newsmax announced the settlement in an Aug. 15 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. According to the document, the network paid $27 million of the settlement on that day; the rest will be paid by January 2027.
Multiple court rulings and investigations by election officials have found no widespread fraud was present in the 2020 election; even still, these debunked claims were still being echoed by factions of Trump supporters in 2024. Dominion has said the election lies caused the company and its employees extensive harm, including death threats and lost revenue.
“We are pleased to have settled this matter,” a Dominion spokesperson said Monday morning.
In mid-April, Judge Eric M. Davis, who had presided over Dominion’s case against Fox News, ruled that all of the at-issue statements that aired on Newsmax were also false and defamatory. His ruling meant that, should the case have gone to trial, the jury would only have had to decide whether Newsmax acted with “actual malice,” whether Dominion should receive damages, and how much money it should get.
In a statement, Newsmax did not admit any wrongdoing. It maintained that its 2020 election coverage was “fair, balanced, and conducted within professional standards of journalism.”
“Newsmax believed it was critically important for the American people to hear both sides of the election disputes that arose in 2020,” it said.
But the company also accused Davis of ruling in ways that “strongly favored the plaintiffs and limited Newsmax’s ability to defend itself.” It claims that the court’s actions, in this case and against Fox, “represent a direct attack on free speech and a free press.”
Newsmax last year settled a defamation case brought by another voting systems company, Smartmatic USA, in the wake of the 2020 election. Information filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed Newsmax was due to pay Smartmatic the second half of that $40 million payout by the end of June 2025.
Smartmatic is still pursuing a $2.7 billion defamation suit against Fox News in New York state court. That case, if it goes to trial, could be heard by a jury in 2026.
Dominion and some of its employees have separately sued Powell and others, including former Trump attorney and New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.
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