# Newsmax-Smartmatic Settlement On September 26, 2024, [[Newsmax]] and [[Smartmatic]] settled a defamation lawsuit on the eve of trial in Wilmington, Delaware. [[Newsmax]] paid $40 million in cash and transferred 2,000 shares of preferred stock to [[Smartmatic]] — terms that were initially sealed but later disclosed in a regulatory filing. The settlement came hours after jury selection had begun, making this the rare election-[[Disinformation]] defamation case that actually reached the threshold of trial before resolving. The case was the second major legal reckoning in the accountability arc that began with [[Dominion Voting Systems]]' lawsuits against networks that amplified [[The Big Lie]] about the 2020 presidential election — and it established that the legal consequences of broadcasting [[Election Denialism]] as fact extended beyond [[Fox News]] to the broader [[Media Ecosystem]] of right-wing outlets. ## Background: The Defamation Claims [[Smartmatic]], a voting technology company, sued [[Newsmax]] for broadcasting and amplifying false claims that [[Smartmatic]] had participated in a criminal conspiracy to rig the 2020 election. The allegations Newsmax aired — drawn from the same [[Stop the Steal]] playbook promoted by [[Sidney Powell]], [[Rudy Giuliani]], and other Trump legal advisers — included claims that [[Smartmatic]] was a Venezuelan-controlled company that had manipulated vote counts across the United States. In reality, [[Smartmatic]]'s technology was used in exactly one U.S. county in the 2020 election: Los Angeles County, California. The company is a U.S.-based firm, not Venezuelan-owned. None of the conspiracy claims aired by [[Newsmax]] had factual basis — a point the network itself effectively conceded as part of the settlement, confirming that [[Smartmatic]] "is a U.S. company not owned by the Venezuelan government, did not provide any technology outside LA County, and did not count votes in the 2020 election." The claims were part of the broader [[Conspiracy Theory]] ecosystem that fueled the [[January 6 Capitol Attack]] and the [[Fake Electors Scheme]]. ## Pre-Trial Rulings Before the settlement, the Delaware court issued several pre-trial rulings that were devastating for [[Newsmax]]'s defense. The court ruled in [[Smartmatic]]'s favor on the question of falsity — meaning the jury would not need to decide whether the claims were false, only whether [[Newsmax]] acted with knowledge of or reckless disregard for their falsity. The court further ruled that the jury would hear arguments that [[Newsmax]] acted with "actual malice" — the constitutional standard for defamation of public figures established in the [[First Amendment]] framework. These rulings gutted [[Newsmax]]'s primary defenses and made a favorable trial outcome unlikely, creating the pressure that drove settlement. ## The Trial That Almost Was Unlike the [[Fox - Dominion Settlement]], which was reached after the jury was sworn but before opening statements, the Newsmax-Smartmatic case came even closer to a full public airing. Jury selection was already underway when the settlement was announced. The proximity to trial is significant: it meant that [[Newsmax]]'s internal communications, editorial decision-making, and the gap between what hosts said on air and what they knew privately were about to become public record — the same dynamic that had proved so damaging to [[Fox News]] when its hosts' private texts were disclosed during the Dominion litigation. ## Newsmax's Financial Fragility The settlement exposed [[Newsmax]]'s precarious financial position. Founded by [[Christopher Ruddy]], a longtime [[Donald Trump]] ally, [[Newsmax]] had grown its audience significantly during and after the 2020 election by positioning itself to the right of [[Fox News]] on election fraud claims — essentially competing for the [[Election Denialism]] audience that [[Fox News]] had briefly alienated by correctly calling Arizona for Biden on election night. But [[Newsmax]]'s revenue base was far smaller than Fox's. The $40 million settlement, plus the equity stake, represented a significant financial hit for a company that had recently gone public. The fact that [[Newsmax]] also settled separately with [[Dominion Voting Systems]] in August 2025 for $67 million — bringing its total defamation liability to over $107 million — underscored the existential financial risk that [[The Big Lie]] created for outlets that lacked Fox's scale. ## The Accountability Arc The Newsmax-Smartmatic settlement is the second domino in a chain of legal consequences for media outlets that broadcast [[Election Denialism]] as established fact: The [[Fox - Dominion Settlement]] in April 2023 ($787.5 million) established the precedent that major media companies could face enormous financial liability for amplifying election [[Disinformation]], even without going to trial. The disclosure of internal communications — including texts from [[Tucker Carlson]], [[Sean Hannity]], and other hosts expressing private disbelief in the claims they were broadcasting — became the defining evidence of "actual malice." The Newsmax-Smartmatic settlement in September 2024 ($40 million + equity) demonstrated that the accountability framework extended beyond Fox to smaller outlets. The pre-trial rulings on falsity and actual malice suggested that courts were applying consistent standards across the [[Media Ecosystem]]. The Newsmax-Dominion settlement in August 2025 ($67 million) further compounded Newsmax's liabilities and showed that both [[Dominion Voting Systems]] and [[Smartmatic]] were pursuing parallel strategies against multiple defendants. The [[Smartmatic]] v [[Fox News]] case, still pending as of mid-2026 with a $2.7 billion damages claim, represents the potentially largest reckoning yet. A New York judge was weighing whether to send the case to trial as of late 2025. Together, these cases represent the most significant use of defamation law to impose consequences for [[Disinformation]] in modern American media history — a development with implications for [[First Amendment]] jurisprudence, [[Free Speech]] norms, and the economics of [[Propaganda]] in the digital age. ## Deal Mechanics [[Newsmax]] paid $40 million in cash and transferred 2,000 shares of preferred stock to [[Smartmatic]]. The equity component was unusual in defamation settlements and reflected either [[Newsmax]]'s cash constraints or [[Smartmatic]]'s interest in retaining financial upside if [[Newsmax]]'s stock appreciated. [[Newsmax]] was not required to issue an on-air apology or retraction, but the factual concessions embedded in the settlement — confirming [[Smartmatic]]'s status as a U.S. company with no role outside Los Angeles County — amounted to a tacit acknowledgment that the network's coverage had been false. ## Why It Matters for the RWKB This settlement is a critical node in the vault's coverage of how [[The Big Lie]] generated real-world legal and financial consequences for its propagators. The defamation accountability arc — running from the [[Fox - Dominion Settlement]] through this case and into the pending Smartmatic v Fox litigation — represents the most concrete mechanism through which the [[Election Denialism]] ecosystem has faced financial reckoning. The case also illuminates the economics of [[Right-Wing Media Timeline]] competition: [[Newsmax]] grew by outflanking [[Fox News]] on election fraud claims, then paid a financial price for exactly that strategy. The [[Propaganda Feedback Loop]] — where audience demand for confirming narratives drives outlets to broadcast increasingly extreme claims — created the conditions for both the growth of [[Newsmax]]'s audience and its subsequent legal liability. For the [[Disinformation]] and media accountability threads of the vault, this case demonstrates that defamation law, while slow and expensive, can function as a corrective mechanism against [[Misinformation]] at scale — particularly when the defendant is a media company operating under the "actual malice" standard of [[First Amendment]] law. ## Open Questions What was the preferred stock ultimately worth? The 2,000 shares of [[Newsmax]] preferred stock could appreciate or depreciate significantly depending on the company's post-settlement trajectory and any future litigation exposure. Will [[Smartmatic]] prevail against [[Fox News]]? The pending $2.7 billion case in New York is the largest remaining piece of the accountability arc. A trial or major settlement could dwarf all prior resolutions combined. Did the settlements change editorial behavior? Whether [[Newsmax]], [[Fox News]], [[One America News Network]], and other outlets have modified their internal editorial controls for election-related coverage — or whether the settlements are treated as a cost of doing business — is an open empirical question with implications for [[Oversight and Accountability Hub]] in the media sector. How do the settlements interact with [[Donald Trump]]'s broader assault on defamation law? Trump has repeatedly called for weakening defamation protections, including revisiting the "actual malice" standard — a position supported by some members of the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] and aligned with the [[Conservative Court Capture Timeline]]. If such reforms succeeded, the legal infrastructure that produced these settlements could be dismantled, undermining the [[Rule of Law]] framework that enabled accountability. ## Connections The settlement connects to [[Fox - Dominion Settlement]] as the first case in the accountability arc; [[Dominion Voting Systems]] and [[Smartmatic]] as the plaintiffs pursuing parallel strategies; [[Newsmax]] and [[Christopher Ruddy]] as the defendant and its principal; [[The Big Lie]], [[Election Denialism]], and [[Stop the Steal]] as the underlying [[Disinformation]] campaign; [[Fox News]], [[Tucker Carlson]], and [[Sean Hannity]] as the larger media ecosystem context; the [[Propaganda Feedback Loop]] and [[Disinformation Hub]] as the structural dynamics that drove the false coverage; and [[First Amendment]] and [[Free Speech]] as the legal framework within which the cases operate. ## See Also - [[Fox - Dominion Settlement]] - [[Newsmax]] - [[Smartmatic]] - [[Dominion Voting Systems]] - [[Christopher Ruddy]] - [[The Big Lie]] - [[Election Denialism]] - [[Stop the Steal]] - [[Fox News]] - [[Tucker Carlson]] - [[Sean Hannity]] - [[Disinformation]] - [[Misinformation]] - [[Propaganda Feedback Loop]] - [[First Amendment]] - [[Free Speech]] - [[Right-Wing Media Timeline]] - [[Media Ecosystem]] - [[Sidney Powell]] - [[Rudy Giuliani]]