A Delaware judge ruled Wednesday that Newsmax Media published “false and defamatory” statements when it accused Dominion Voting Systems of rigging the 2020 presidential election. Despite the ruling, Newsmax will be allowed to present other legal defenses at trial, which is set to begin April 28 in Wilmington.
Dominion also must prove that Newsmax either knowingly spread falsehoods or acted with reckless disregard for the truth — the legal threshold known as “actual malice.”
A jury will still determine whether Newsmax must pay damages in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit
Judge Eric Davis of the Delaware Superior Court found that several claims made by Newsmax — including that Dominion manipulated votes using an algorithm, was linked to Venezuela, paid kickbacks to officials, and was tied to irregularities in Dallas — were “false and amounted to defamation.”
Dominion, based in Denver, filed the lawsuit in 2021, accusing Newsmax of amplifying the claim that its machines stole the election from President Trump.
In a statement, a Newsmax spokesperson said the network fairly covered both sides of the 2020 election and described the lawsuit as a threat to free speech and press freedom.
Last year, Newsmax agreed to pay $40 million to settle a separate defamation case brought by voting machine company Smartmatic. Dominion previously settled a similar lawsuit against Fox News in 2023 for $787.5 million, just before that trial was set to begin before the same judge.
