US Elections 2020

Newsmax has paid $27m so far, and will pay $20m in 2026 and $20m in 2027 to technology firm Dominion Voting Systems.

The right-wing network Newsmax will pay $67m to a voting technology firm over outright false claims it made about United States President Donald Trump‘s 2020 election loss.

The settlement of the defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems was announced in a filing by Newsmax on Monday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Under the settlement agreement, Newsmax said it had paid Dominion $27m on Friday and would pay $20m in 2026 and the final $20m in 2027.

The Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News settled a similar defamation lawsuit with Dominion in 2023 for the larger sum of $787.5m.

The settlement came as Trump vowed in a social media post on Monday to eliminate mail-in ballots and voting machines such as those supplied by Dominion and other companies. But it was unclear how the Republican president could achieve that.

Dominion filed a defamation suit against Newsmax in 2021 over false claims that its voting technology was used to rig the 2020 US presidential election, in which Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump. Dominion sought $1.6bn in damages.

In a statement, Newsmax said it had agreed to settle because it did not believe it would receive a fair trial.

Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis had ruled earlier that Newsmax defamed Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems by airing false information about the company and its equipment. But Davis said he would leave it to a jury to eventually decide whether that was done with malice, and, if so, how much Dominion deserved from Newsmax in damages.

“The pattern of judicial rulings that consistently denied Newsmax due process left the Company to believe it would not receive a fair trial,” Newsmax said. “Faced with these rulings and other constraints, Newsmax chose to settle the case.”

“Newsmax has always maintained that its reporting was not defamatory and that its coverage was consistent with accepted journalistic standards,” the company said.

“We stand by our coverage as fair, balanced, and conducted within professional standards of journalism,” it added.

However, internal correspondence from Newsmax officials shows they knew Trump’s claims of electoral fraud were baseless.

Davis also handled the Dominion-Fox News case, and made a similar ruling that the network repeated numerous lies by Trump’s allies about his 2020 loss despite internal communications showing Fox officials knew the claims were false.

Though Trump has insisted his fraud claims are real, there’s no evidence to prove they were, and the lawsuits in the Fox and Newsmax cases show how some of the president’s biggest supporters knew they were false at the time. Trump’s then-attorney general, William Barr, said there was no evidence of widespread fraud.

Trump and his backers lost dozens of lawsuits alleging fraud, some before Trump-appointed judges. Numerous recounts, reviews and audits of the election results, including some run by Republicans, turned up no signs of significant wrongdoing or error and affirmed Biden’s win.

Trump revives longstanding grievance as the White House is consumed by a foreign policy decision on whether to get directly involved in the Israel-Iran war.

US President Donald Trump has called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden, repeating his baseless claim that the contest was marred by widespread fraud.

In a post on Truth Social, the president criticised Biden on immigration issues and said he lost the 2020 presidential election by a “LANDSLIDE”.

“Biden was grossly incompetent, and the 2020 election was a total FRAUD!” Trump said. “The evidence is MASSIVE and OVERWHELMING. A Special Prosecutor must be appointed. This cannot be allowed to happen again in the United States of America! Let the work begin!”

Trump’s revival of his longstanding grievance, which comes as his White House is consumed by a hugely substantial foreign policy decision on whether to get directly involved in the Israel-Iran war, is part of an amped-up effort by him to undermine the legitimacy of Biden’s presidency.

Earlier this month, Trump directed his administration to investigate Biden’s actions as president, alleging aides masked his predecessor’s “cognitive decline.” Biden has dismissed the investigation as “a mere distraction”.

The post also revives Trump’s claim that the election was stolen, even though courts around the country and a Trump attorney general from his first term found no evidence of fraud that could have affected the outcome. The Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity arm pronounced the election “the most secure in American history”.

And in 2022, the House of Representatives January 6 committee’s final report asserts that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Trump’s repeated, false claims of widespread voter fraud resonated with his supporters, the committee said, and were amplified on social media, building on the distrust of government he had fostered during his four years in office.

It was unclear what Trump had in mind when he called for a special prosecutor, but in the event Attorney General Pam Bondi heeds his call, she may face pressure to appoint someone who has already been confirmed by the Senate.

A Department of Justice spokesperson declined to comment Friday.

The Justice Department, in recent years, has appointed a succession of special counsels – sometimes, though not always, plucked from outside the agency – to lead investigations into politically sensitive matters, including conduct by Biden and Trump.

Last year, Trump’s personal lawyers launched an aggressive, and successful, challenge to the appointment of Jack Smith, the special counsel assigned to investigate his efforts to undo the 2020 presidential election and his retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

A Trump-appointed judge agreed, ruling that then-Attorney General Merrick Garland had exceeded his bounds by appointing a prosecutor without Senate approval and confirmation, and dismissed the case.

That legal team included Todd Blanche, who is now deputy attorney general, as well as Emil Bove, who is Blanche’s top deputy but was recently nominated to serve as a judge on a federal appeals court.