FOX, NEWSMAX RETREAT ON CLAIMS VS. SMARTMATIC, DOMINION

Two election technology companies whose names have come up in President Donald Trump’s false charges of widespread voter fraud in the presidential election are fighting back, prompting unusual public statements from Fox News and Newsmax, David Bauder reported for the Associated Press (AP).

The statements, over the weekend and on Monday, came after the companies Smartmatic and Dominion raised the prospect of legal action for reporting what they said was false information about them.

Both companies were referenced in the campaign’s suggestion that vote counts in swing states were manipulated to the advantage of President-elect Joe Biden. The companies deny several statements made about them, and there is no evidence any voting system switched or deleted votes in the 2020 election.

Dominion has not specifically targeted any news organization but its lawyers sent a letter to Sidney Powell, demanding the Trump supporter retract several of the “wild and reckless” allegations she has made about them. The company said some of its employees have been stalked, harassed and received death threats.

In its letter to Powell, Dominion lawyers Thomas Clare and Megan Meier said that the company had no ties “to the Chinese government, the Venezuelan government, Hugo Chavez, (British politician) Malloch Brown, George Soros, Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster.” Powell did not immediately return a request for comment.

A nearly two-minute pre-taped segment was aired over the weekend on a Fox Business Network program hosted by Lou Dobbs and Fox News Channel shows with Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro.

That came days after Smartmatic sent a letter threatening legal action to Fox and two other networks popular with Trump supporters, Newsmax and One America News Network. The two-minute Fox segments aired in the form of a question-and-answer session between an offscreen voice and Eddie Perez, a voting technology expert at the nonpartisan Open Source Election Technology Institute.

“I have not seen any evidence that Smartmatic software was used to delete, change or alter anything related to vote tabulations,” Perez said. Perez also said there was no apparent business relationship between Smartmatic and Dominion. After the segment aired Sunday on Bartiromo’s show, she said, “So that is where we stand right now. We will keep investigating.”

A statement aired by Newsmax anchors on Monday, and also printed on the company website, was much broader and concerned both Smartmatic and Dominion. Newsmax said there were “several facts our viewers and readers should be aware,” among them the lack of a business relationship between the two companies or that Dominion had any ownership relationship with George Soros, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others.

“No evidence has been offered that Dominion or Smartmatic used software or reprogrammed software that manipulated votes in the 2020 election,” Newsmax said.

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