April 17 (UPI) — A Delaware judge overseeing a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News pushed the start of the trial 24 hours late Sunday.
The highly anticipated trial, which was set to begin Monday with jury selection, was delayed until Tuesday, Judge Eric Davis told UPI in a statement, without stating a reason.
Dominion Voting Systems filed the lawsuit against Fox News in March of 2021, accusing the conservative media organization of knowingly spreading false claims that it was involved in voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election.
The company, which was founded in Canada in 2003 and is based in Toronto and Denver, states in the complaint that following the presidential victory of then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden, viewers were fleeing Fox News for other media companies endorsing then-President Donald Trump‘s false claims of widespread voter fraud.
“So Fox set out to lure viewers back — including President Trump himself — by intentionally and falsely blaming Dominion for President Trump’s loss by rigging the election,” the court document states. “Fox endorsed, repeated and broadcast a series of verifiably false yet devastating lies about Dominion.”
The court document states Fox News falsely accused Dominion of rigging the 2020 presidential election, manipulating the vote count via software and algorithms, being owned by a company founded in Venezuela to rig elections for the late dictator Hugo Chavez and paying kickbacks to government officials who used its machines in the election.
According to the statement sent to UPI, Davis said the trial, including jury selection, will now begin Tuesday at 9 a.m., and that he will make a formal announcement of the change in court on Monday.