“A billionaire is boosting a major defamation lawsuit against Fox News”

WaPo:

Smartmatic, the voting technology company enmeshed in complex defamation lawsuits against Fox News and Newsmax, has a powerful new financial ally: billionaire tech entrepreneur Reid Hoffman.

Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn, has made a multimillion-dollar investment intended in part to help the company sustain its costly litigation. Smartmatic has said the two news outlets smeared it by airing bogus claims of rigged vote counting in the 2020 election.

In a statement provided to The Washington Post, Hoffman alluded to the toll taken on Smartmatic, which has spent tens of millions on legal costs related to the suits. “Smartmatic built a global business by using technology to better engage citizens, regardless of party or ideology, by making voting simple and trustworthy,” Hoffman said. “After Donald Trump lost in 2020, however, Smartmatic became a target of the defamatory campaign to overturn his defeat.”

Update: Fox News Media’s response: “As a report prepared by our financial expert shows, Smartmatic’s damages claims against FOX News are highly implausible, disconnected from reality and on their face intended to chill First Amendment freedoms, so their alliance with a high profile Democratic donor and longtime supporter of President Biden to fund their lawsuit is entirely predictable. We remain ready to defend this case surrounding extremely newsworthy events when it goes to trial next year.”

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