Newsmax can pay $67 million to Dominion Voting Programs to settle a lawsuit over the community’s protection of the 2020 presidential election. On this picture from April 3, 2025, Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy and former New York Metropolis Mayor Rudy Giuliani be a part of others on the opening of buying and selling on the New York Inventory Change.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Photos/Getty Photos North America
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Michael M. Santiago/Getty Photos/Getty Photos North America
Newsmax can pay $67 million to settle one of many final excellent defamation lawsuits in opposition to a information group for airing false claims that the 2020 election was rigged.
Denver-based Dominion Voting Programs – the identical voting-technology firm that had acquired a $787 million settlement from Fox Information over its election protection – introduced the lawsuit in opposition to Newsmax. A trial was scheduled to start in October.
Within the lawsuit, filed within the months after the 2020 election, Dominion accused the cable information community of spreading false claims that the corporate’s voting expertise had been manipulated to assist Joe Biden beat Donald Trump. Like different right-wing information networks, Newsmax featured Trump allies who promoted these conspiracies, together with former Trump marketing campaign lawyer Sidney Powell and supporter Mike Lindell of My Pillow.
Newsmax introduced the settlement in an Aug. 15 submitting with the U.S. Securities and Change Fee. Based on the doc, the community paid $27 million of the settlement on that day; the remaining will probably be paid by January 2027.
A number of court docket rulings and investigations by election officers have discovered no widespread fraud was current within the 2020 election; even nonetheless, these debunked claims have been nonetheless being echoed by factions of Trump supporters in 2024. Dominion has mentioned the election lies precipitated the corporate and its staff intensive hurt, together with loss of life threats and misplaced income.
“We’re happy to have settled this matter,” a Dominion spokesperson mentioned Monday morning.
In mid-April, Choose Eric M. Davis, who had presided over Dominion’s case in opposition to Fox Information, dominated that the entire at-issue statements that aired on Newsmax have been additionally false and defamatory. His ruling meant that, ought to the case have gone to trial, the jury would solely have needed to determine whether or not Newsmax acted with “precise malice,” whether or not Dominion ought to obtain damages, and the way a lot cash it ought to get.
In an announcement, Newsmax didn’t admit any wrongdoing. It maintained that its 2020 election protection was “honest, balanced, and performed inside skilled requirements of journalism.”
“Newsmax believed it was critically essential for the American folks to listen to either side of the election disputes that arose in 2020,” it mentioned.
However the firm additionally accused Davis of ruling in ways in which “strongly favored the plaintiffs and restricted Newsmax’s capability to defend itself.” It claims that the court docket’s actions, on this case and in opposition to Fox, “characterize a direct assault on free speech and a free press.”
Newsmax final yr settled a defamation case introduced by one other voting programs firm, Smartmatic USA, within the wake of the 2020 election. Data filed with the U.S. Securities and Change Fee confirmed Newsmax was as a result of pay Smartmatic the second half of that $40 million payout by the tip of June 2025.
Smartmatic continues to be pursuing a $2.7 billion defamation swimsuit in opposition to Fox Information in New York state court docket. That case, if it goes to trial, might be heard by a jury in 2026.
Dominion and a few of its staff have individually sued Powell and others, together with former Trump legal professional and New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.
