Updated @ 11:52 AM EDT on August 18, 2025
One of the final pending defamation lawsuits against a news outlet for presenting false allegations that the 2020 election was rigged will be settled with Newsmax for $67 million.
The complaint against Newsmax was filed by Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, the same voting technology company that had settled with Fox News for $787 million over its election coverage. The trial was set to start in October.
Dominion accused the cable news network of disseminating untrue allegations that the company’s voting technology had been tampered with to help Joe Biden defeat Donald Trump in the complaint, which was launched in the months following the 2020 election. Like other right-wing news outlets, Newsmax highlighted Trump supporters who spread similar conspiracy theories, such as My Pillow backer Mike Lindell and former Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell.
The settlement was disclosed by Newsmax in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on August 15. The document states that $27 million of the settlement was paid by the network on that day, with the remaining amount due in January 2027.
Numerous judicial decisions and election officials’ investigations have concluded that there was no significant fraud in the 2020 election; nonetheless, in 2024, some Trump loyalists continued to echo these refuted allegations. According to Dominion, the election frauds seriously harmed the business and its workers, resulting in lost income and threats of death.
“We are happy that this issue has been resolved,” a Dominion representative stated on Monday morning.
The judge who had heard Dominion’s case against Fox News, Eric M. Davis, declared in mid-April that all of the at-issue remarks that were broadcast on Newsmax were false and defamatory. As a result of his decision, the jury would have just needed to determine whether Newsmax behaved with “actual malice,” whether Dominion should be compensated, and how much money it should be awarded if the matter had gone to trial.
Newsmax did not acknowledge any misconduct in a statement. It insisted that the coverage of the 2020 election was “fair, balanced, and conducted within professional standards of journalism.”
“Newsmax believed it was critically important for the American people to hear both sides of the election disputes that arose in 2020,” it stated.
However, the business also charged that Davis’ decisions “strongly favored the plaintiffs and limited Newsmax’s ability to defend itself.” Both this lawsuit and the one against Fox, it says, “represent a direct attack on free speech and a free press.”
In the wake of the 2020 election, Newsmax resolved a slander lawsuit filed by Smartmatic USA, another voting equipment business, last year. By the end of June 2025, Newsmax was supposed to give Smartmatic the second half of that $40 million payout, according to documents submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
In New York state court, Smartmatic is still pursuing a $2.7 billion slander lawsuit against Fox News. A jury may hear that case in 2026 if it goes to trial.
Powell and others, including former Trump lawyer and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, have been sued individually by Dominion and a few of its workers.
Copyright 2025 NPR
