Newsmax Countersues Smartmatic Corp. Citing an ‘Anti Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation’ Statute

Smartmatic sued Newsmax, a pro Trump conservative cable news network, in November, arguing that the outlet was broadcasting false claims on the air about the software company that builds electronic voting systems. News outlets have a First Amendment right to report news. Smartmatic is arguing that Newsmax was intentionally spreading false news about the company, when all they were doing was reporting news.

Newsmax reported stories from whistleblower testimony and other sources of 2020 presidential election irregularities that were found in key battleground states from machines using Smartmatic. This was during the phase after the election where social media platforms were censoring any free speech that even mentioned election irregularities and Fake News outlets were blacklisting any news at all that didn’t go with the narrative that Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in the cleanest election of our nation’s history.

Many believe the lawsuit brought by Smartmatic was an attempt to shut down news broadcasts by Newsmax about voting irregularities that people were testifying about. They sued other networks that reported whistleblower testimony, not just Newsmax.

Here’s how good a job the Fake News and social media tech tyrants did to censor any news about election irregularities. Most people on the Left have no idea that each of the state legislatures from the key battleground states held hearings on election irregularities where people who worked inside vote counting centers testified upon penalty of perjury that they witnessed massive amounts of voter fraud. They gave what sounded like credible information in their testimony, many of them veteran precinct election workers and data experts.

Newsmax Media Inc. has now counter-sued Smartmatic Corporation, arguing that Smartmatic’s lawsuit violated a law against litigation intended to intimidate another party into silence on a matter of public interest. The outlet filed the counter-suit on Monday in Delaware.

The outlet argued that Smartmatic’s defamation suit against them comes from “Newsmax’s exercise of its right to free speech in connection with issues of public interest.”

Smartmatic, and rival/associates company Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. are seeking billions of dollars in damages against conservative news networks and Trump associates for spreading false claims on air. Someone better tell CNN and MSNBC that they can be sued for every show they have ever aired over the last 5 years.

These two companies went after Rudy Giuliani, who acted as President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, who attended the legislature hearings to witness firsthand the people testifying about things they saw. It is not unlawful for Giuliani to speak about what was said during public hearings by people who were testifying under penalty of perjury.

The filing Newsmax made on Monday cites an Anti Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation statute, or anti-SLAPP law. It’s used when a plaintiff knows there is a slim chance of winning a case they have filed, and their intentions are only to make the process the punishment. It’s when a lawsuit is intended to censor, threaten, and silence opposing views and critics by overwhelming them with the cost of a legal defense until they give in and stop their criticism or giving opposition viewpoints.

It’s like a law in Pennsylvania called “The Dragonetti Act,” a law that was designed to allow people who have been named as defendants in civil actions to sue the people who sued them if they believe that the actions were a wrongful use of civil proceedings.

Defamation lawsuits are incredibly difficult to win, because the plaintiff has to prove three things: the thing the defendant said is demonstrably false, the defendant knew it was false and said it anyway, and the plaintiff can show they lost money because of what the defendant said. That’s a near impossible task, especially when no member of the Newsmax crew ever said they knew what they were reporting was false information.