In a legal saga that has gripped both the media world and the public, Fox News is once again facing a critical test in court over its coverage of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. On December 2, 2025, a Manhattan courtroom became the stage for a high-stakes hearing: should Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News proceed to a full jury trial? For many, the case feels like déjà vu, echoing Fox’s recent and costly settlement with Dominion Voting Systems.
According to legal filings reviewed by Beritaja and NPR, the heart of the dispute is Fox News’ repeated airing of false claims that Smartmatic, a London-based voting technology company, helped rig the 2020 election for Joe Biden. Despite these allegations making waves on Fox’s prime-time shows, internal communications and sworn testimony reveal that top Fox executives and stars—including Jesse Watters—did not believe the wild accusations from then-President Donald Trump and his inner circle. Yet, the network gave these conspiracy theories a national platform, with devastating consequences for Smartmatic’s reputation and business prospects.
Smartmatic’s lawsuit, filed back in February 2021, claims that Fox’s coverage led to death threats against its officials and torpedoed its growth in the U.S. and abroad. The company, which only operated in Los Angeles County during the 2020 election—a region heavily favoring Biden—was nonetheless accused on Fox shows of swinging the national vote. Smartmatic alleges that the network’s actions were not only reckless but calculated to appease pro-Trump viewers who had begun abandoning Fox for more hardline outlets like Newsmax and OANN after Fox projected Biden’s win in Arizona.
This isn’t Fox News’ first time in the legal crosshairs over election coverage. In 2023, the network settled a similar defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems, paying out a record $787.5 million without admitting any wrongdoing. The Dominion case had revealed that Fox’s top hosts and executives were desperate to retain the loyalty of Trump supporters, even as they privately dismissed the claims they aired. As Fox stated at the time, "We acknowledge the Court's rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false."
Smartmatic’s legal complaint names several high-profile co-defendants: the late Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro, along with Trump’s legal advisers Rudolph Giuliani and Sidney Powell. Each played a visible role in amplifying the election fraud narrative on Fox’s airwaves. In a now-public text exchange from 2020, anchor Jesse Watters messaged his colleague Greg Gutfeld, "Think about how incredible our ratings would be if Fox went ALL in on STOP THE STEAL," according to court documents. Under oath, however, Watters testified he never found such claims credible.
Fox News has drawn sharp distinctions between the Smartmatic and Dominion cases, pointing to different jurisdictions, judges, and plaintiffs. In a statement released through a spokesperson, Fox said, "The evidence shows that Smartmatic's business and reputation were badly suffering long before any claims by President Trump's lawyers on Fox News and that Smartmatic grossly inflated its damage claims to generate headlines and chill free speech. We are eager and ready to continue defending our press freedoms." The network argues its hosts were engaged in legitimate coverage of newsworthy statements by public figures, not endorsing them as fact.
Yet, court filings and internal records suggest that inside Fox, skepticism about the fraud claims was widespread. Senior executives and on-air personalities privately acknowledged Trump’s defeat, even as they continued to air segments boosting his narrative. The filings also show Fox personalities saw their interests as aligned with the Republican Party under Trump, sometimes at the expense of independent reporting. In one revealing workplace survey from the summer of 2020, Fox staffers complained about the network’s bias and apparent willingness to flatter the administration. One employee wrote, "We need a recalibration of our standards of conduct for our on-air talent, as well as the truthfulness of our reporting. It often feels like our editorial view and specifically our on-air talent has changed to just working for the current administration and will say anything that will be flattering to them. It seems like there's a fear that we cannot anger the president or his most zealous supporters, and have abdicated all pretense of truthful reporting; often allowing guests to say lies unchallenged, or saying false information ourselves to the detriment of our reputation."
Fox’s attorneys dismissed these remarks as incomplete and cherry-picked, noting the company’s "Great Place to Work" designation. Still, the fallout was swift. The day after Smartmatic filed its lawsuit, Fox Business Network canceled Lou Dobbs’ show. Dobbs, a vocal proponent of the fraud claims, was never seen on Fox airwaves again before his death in July 2024.
In response to Smartmatic’s legal threat, Fox aired a segment featuring Eddie Perez, an outside voting technology and integrity expert, who systematically debunked the allegations against Smartmatic. Perez later told Beritaja he did not consider the segment a correction, but was glad to provide accurate information to Fox viewers after so much disinformation had been aired. Nonetheless, Fox never issued a formal retraction.
Smartmatic’s legal teams also highlighted a damning pattern: Fox stars and executives consistently lied to their viewers, knowing the claims were untrue, while under oath admitting they knew better all along. As a Smartmatic spokesperson told Beritaja, "They knew what they were saying was untrue when they were willingly destroying Smartmatic's reputation, though when under oath they admitted they knew better the whole time."
Fox has also questioned Smartmatic’s financial health and international dealings. In October 2025, federal prosecutors charged Smartmatic in a scheme to pay over $1 billion in bribes related to the 2016 Philippine elections—a charge the company vehemently denied as "targeted, political and unjust." New York State Supreme Court Justice David B. Cohen rejected Fox’s request to delay the defamation case until those criminal charges were resolved.
For now, Fox appears to be holding its ground, gambling that Smartmatic’s own troubles will undermine the case. But if history is any guide, the network’s hardball tactics could again give way to a last-minute settlement, as seen in the Dominion case and previous Murdoch family legal battles in the U.K.
As the legal drama unfolds, the stakes remain sky-high for Fox News, Smartmatic, and the broader media landscape. The outcome could reshape the boundaries of press freedom, accountability, and the consequences of broadcasting falsehoods in the digital age.