In one filing, Fox accuses Smartmatic’s chief executive officer of “ordering” the company’s president to delete messages “discussing critical damages issues.”
Fox News has filed a series of court documents claiming that election technology company Smartmatic engaged in the “brazen and purposeful” destruction of evidence during its multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuit against the conservative news network.
According to ABC News, filings submitted by Fox’s attorneys indicate that “nearly” two-dozen executives and sales employees at Smartmatic intentionally deleted data that was relevant to the company’s damages claim. These alleged transgressions occurred “either shortly before or while the case was pending.”
“For many witnesses, the spoliation is pervasive and resulted in the apparent deletion of all, or nearly all, of their mobile data,” the filing claims. “The destroyed text messages have left serious gaps in the record from individuals who were directly responsible for developing Smartmatic’s farfetched damages story.”
As LegalReader.com has reported before, Smartmatic sued Fox News for defamation in 2021, claiming that the media outlet “knowingly and intentionally” spread false claims that Smartmatic facilitated voter fraud during the 2020 general election.
Smartmatic has largely prevailed in its claims against Fox, but the latter is contesting Smartmatic’s claim of having sustained upward of $2.7 billion in damages.
In one filing, Fox accuses Smartmatic’s chief executive officer of “ordering” the company’s president to delete messages “discussing critical damages issues.” The same filing also claims that another executive directed subordinates to falsify customer records to “manufacture support for the massive damages case Smartmatic had invented.”
“And while they should have been retaining documents, key Smartmatic employees deleted their mobile messages, depriving Fox of yet more evidence undermining Smartmatic’s unsupported damages claim,” the filing says.
Smartmatic has also accused Fox of spoliation, claiming that its top-rung leadership—including network founder Rupert Murdoch and its chairman, Lachlan Murdoch—coordinated to delete text messages and other evidence.
“The destruction was not isolated or accidental,” Smartmatic wrote its own filing. “It was extensive and willful.”
Fox has protested Smartmatic’s claims.
“There is zero evidence of any bad intent or culpability on the part of anyone at Fox to spoliate evidence or conceal anything,” Fox maintains. “Fox undertook extensive mitigation measures to remedy the gaps and produced thousands of text messages and emails to Smartmatic.”
However, Erik Connolly, an attorney for Smartmatic, says that Fox’s legal maneuvering is a thinly-veiled attempt to distract the public from the case’s core claims.
“Fox continues to smear Smartmatic to distract from the truth: Fox lied following the 2020 election and has repeatedly lied to shield itself from accountability in this case,” Connolly said in a statement. “Fox’s baseless attacks are nothing more than retaliation, a deliberate effort to avoid addressing its own destruction of evidence.”
Sources
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