ExtremismLedger
ExtremismLedger is a living public-interest database. Records are continuously reviewed, updated, and expanded as new verified information becomes available.

Fox News Network -- Dominion and Smartmatic Election-Fraud Litigation

Overview

This page documents Fox News Network's editorial and corporate conduct connected to the two 2020 election-fraud defamation lawsuits it faces: Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. v. Fox News Network, LLC (settled April 2023) and the still-pending Smartmatic USA Corp. v. Fox Corporation, et al. Per ExtremismLedger's editorial policy Sec. 0.1, documenting this litigation and the internal communications it surfaced is activity-level documentation, not a determination that Fox News Network is itself an extremist organization; no such classification has been made for this record, and none is asserted here.

The Dominion litigation and the court's falsity finding

On March 31, 2023, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis granted Dominion partial summary judgment, ruling as a matter of law that the challenged on-air statements about Dominion's role in the 2020 election were false and defamatory per se under New York law -- writing that it was "CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true." The court did not decide whether Fox acted with "actual malice"; that question, along with damages, was left for trial. The case settled for $787.5 million on April 18, 2023, hours before opening statements. Fox's public statement said: "We acknowledge the Court's rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false. This settlement reflects Fox's continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards." No on-air retraction or apology was required.

What the litigation record showed about editorial decision-making

Deposition testimony and internal communications made public through the litigation bear on editorial authority and corporate response, distinct from any individual host's on-air conduct (documented on each host's own record):

  • Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch testified that hosts Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro, and Sean Hannity had "endorsed" false election-fraud claims, and that he personally could have ordered that Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani not be booked as guests but did not: "I could have. But I didn't."
  • Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott wrote internally in December 2020 that an on-air fact-check of the President's unsupported fraud claims was "bad for business," and separately warned against giving "the crazies" -- her term -- "an inch."
  • Fox News President Jay Wallace privately described the network's own post-election coverage in derogatory terms even as it continued to air.

These are evidentiary factors bearing on institutional/editorial responsibility, not a finding that every host's or executive's conduct is interchangeable; see each individual's own record for what is specifically documented about them.

Smartmatic litigation (separate, ongoing)

Smartmatic USA Corp. filed a separate $2.7 billion defamation suit in 2021 against Fox Corporation, Fox News Network, and hosts Dobbs, Bartiromo, and Pirro. A New York appellate court ruled in 2025 that Fox Corporation must face trial on direct-liability claims. No findings of fact comparable to the Dominion summary judgment ruling have been reported in the Smartmatic case.

On May 7, 2026, the Appellate Division, First Department declined to stay the case pending a separate federal criminal proceeding against Smartmatic and its executives over unrelated Foreign Corrupt Practices Act bribery/money-laundering allegations tied to a 2016 Philippine election, reasoning that the criminal case "will not be decisive of the issues in the instant case, in which plaintiffs allege that defendants defamed them by reporting that Smartmatic engaged in vote-rigging in connection with the 2020 United States presidential election." The court allowed only limited additional discovery into how a superseding indictment -- which added Smartmatic itself as a defendant -- affects Smartmatic's business and damages; it did not rule on the truth of the criminal allegations or on Fox's liability in the defamation case. Lou Dobbs, one of the individually named defendants, died July 18, 2024; the estate's administrator, Debi Dobbs, has been substituted as a party. Cross-motions for summary judgment were argued December 2, 2025. As of the most recent court records and reporting reviewed in September 2026, the case remained pending, with no published decision identified resolving the parties' summary-judgment motions and no trial date identified.

Sources