Dominion Voting Systems has filed a $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox News for defamation. The lawsuit marks the latest legal action that the company has taken in the wake of Donald Trump and his supporters’ false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
In the suit, filed on Friday (March 26) in Delaware Superior Court, Dominion accused Fox News of spreading false information about the election and claiming their machines were manipulated to help Joe Biden win.
“The truth matters. Lies have consequences,” the lawsuit reads. “Fox sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring Dominion in the process. If this case does not rise to the level of defamation by a broadcaster, then nothing does.”
Along with Fox, Dominion previously filed lawsuits against MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and Trump’s attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. The company claims Giuliani, Powell and Lindell damaged its reputation by contributing to lies surrounding the election. All three regularly appeared on Fox and other conservative news outlets to contest the election results.
According to Deadline, Dominion voting machines are used in 28 states and the company said its workers — including its CEO, engineers and technicians — were harassed by Trump supporters after the election.
The outlet also notes that no individual Fox News contributors were named in the lawsuit. However, Dominion lawyers could still pursue additional legal claims against them in the future.
“The buck stops with Fox on this,” attorney Stephen Shackelford told the Associated Press. “Fox chose to put this on all of its many platforms. They rebroadcast, republished it on social media and other places.”
Associated Press reports that even before Dominion’s lawsuit, Fox News was already facing four other lawsuits surrounding their election coverage.
“Fox News Media is proud of our 2020 election coverage, which stands in the highest tradition of American journalism and we will vigorously defend against this baseless lawsuit in court,” the station said in a statement.