December 21, 2020 12:22 p.m.
After their parent company received a lengthy, angry letter from a voting machine manufacturer at the center of multiple election conspiracy theories, three separate programs on Fox News and Fox Business aired an identical interview fact-checking some of their hosts’ own claims this weekend, enraging viewers and surprising the fact-based community.
The company, Smartmatic, has been smeared repeatedly by Fox News and Fox Business hosts not to mention the President’s lawyers and others in the right-wing fever swamps as a key player in a plot to rob Trump of a second term.
Earlier this month, Smartmatic sent a lengthy legal notice to Fox News demanding a public retractions “on multiple occasions … and across the various platforms used by Fox News to disseminate the false and defamatory statements.”
Fox Airs Segment Challenging Election Fraud Claims Against Smartmatic After Threat of Legal Action
Newsmax broadcast a similar segment
Fox News on Friday ran a segment challenging a number of claims about election software firm Smartmatic, after the company threatened to sue the network over what it said was the publication of “false and defamatory statements.”
Smartmatic last week threatened litigation against Fox, Newsmax, and OANN, announcing that Smartmatic had sent a number of retraction demand letters which “identify dozens of factually inaccurate statements made by each of the organizations as part of a ‘disinformation campaign’ to injure Smartmatic and discredit the 2020 U.S. election.”
Fox News and Newsmax, facing lawsuits, walk back wild fraud claims about voting-machine companies David Knowles
Facing the threat of lawsuits for defamation, Fox News and the upstart right-wing network Newsmax have begun broadcasting segments walking back wild election fraud allegations against voting-machine and software manufacturers Smartmatic and Dominion.
“Newsmax would like to clarify its news coverage and note that it has not reported as true certain claims made about these companies,” host John Tabacco said Monday, attributing the “opinions and claims” to “various guests, attorneys and elected officials” who appeared on the network. The charges, which the companies say are baseless and have been widely mocked as ridiculous, originated with former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, who accused the two companies of conspiring with Democrats and the Venezuelan government to tip the election to Joe Biden.
For weeks, Fox News hosts have peddled allegations of widespread voter fraud occurring in the 2020 election, a baseless claim that was first made by President Donald Trump.
Election software company Smartmatic sent Fox News a legal threat demanding a full retraction of these falsities and inaccuracies.
In response, Fox News created and aired a segment dedicated to debunking various inaccuracies and falsities related to the results of the 2020 election.
Over the weekend, Fox News aired a segment that debunked some of the election fraud claims made by its own hosts and anchors.
The network put together a news package that ran across various Fox News and Fox Business Network shows, starting with Lou Dobbs show on Friday night. Fox created the segment in response to a legal threat from election software company Smartmatic.
What followed was a startling pre-taped segment in which Perez proceeded to answer questions from an unidentified person that essentially dismissed several of the conspiracy theories that several Fox News hosts, including Dobbs had been peddling. “I have not seen any evidence that Smartmatic software was used to delete, change, alter anything related to vote tabulation,” Perez said. Fox News will also be airing the segment on Jeanine Pirro’s show Saturday night and Maria Bartiromo’s show on Sunday.
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The segment came shortly after Smartmatic sent a 20-page legal demand letter to Fox News Media. It also sent similar letters to Newsmax and One America News demanding “a full and complete retraction of all false and defamatory statements and reports” aired by the networks. The letter includes several statements made by Dobbs as well as in the shows hosted by Pirro and Bartiromo.