Fox News settles defamation with businessman they linked to voting fraud
Fox News and one of its former hosts, Lou Dobbs, have settled a defamation suit with a Venezuelan businessman who had been linked by the network to voting-system fraud in the 2020 election.
In a letter filed Saturday to a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, the parties said they had reached a confidential settlement. They did not disclose the terms.
“This matter has been resolved amicably by both sides,” a spokesperson for Fox News said in an email. “We have no further comment.”
Fox News host Lou Dobbs.Credit: AP
The settlement comes days before jury selection this week in a major case that Fox News is defending. That case, a $US1.6 billion ($2.4 billion) defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, says that Fox News lied about voter fraud in the 2020 election, and that Fox hosts and guests repeatedly made false claims about Dominion machines and their supposed role in a plot to steal the election from President Donald Trump in 2020.
In that trial, which is expected to begin April 17, a jury will weigh whether Fox spread false claims about Dominion while knowing that the claims were untrue, and it will determine any damages.
“Dominion’s lawsuit is a political crusade in search of a financial windfall,” the Fox spokesperson said.
In the case against the Venezuelan businessman, Majed Khalil, Dobbs and Sidney Powell, a regular guest on Fox News, said on-air and in related Twitter posts that Dominion was using software to flip votes from Trump to Joe Biden, or to add votes for Biden.
One of the tweets falsely said Khalil was “the effective ‘COO’ of the election project.” In an earlier complaint, the plaintiffs said neither Fox News nor Dobbs had reached out to Khalil for comment.
Fox Business cancelled Dobbs’ weekday show in February 2021.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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