WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Dominion Voting Systems has filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, accusing the cable news network of falsely claiming the voting company rigged the 2020 election in order to boost its ratings, the Associated Press reported on Friday.
Dominion, which has already sued former President Donald Trump’s campaign, his former campaign lawyer Sidney Powell and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, argued Fox News “sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring Dominion in the process,” according to a copy of the lawsuit cited by AP.
Trump, a Republican, lost the November 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden but continued to make false claims of widespread voter fraud, and his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in January as Congress moved to certify the election results.
Fox News amplified those false claims, including assertions that Dominion’s systems changed votes, despite efforts by the voting systems company to set the record straight, Dominion said in its lawsuit, according to AP.
Representatives for Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems did not immediately reply to Reuters requests for comment.
Dominion sued pro-Trump news outlets One America News Network and Newsmax Media in December, and last month asked social media outlets to preserve posts from the networks as well as Fox News, Trump and others.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey; additional reportingby Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
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