A judge in New York hearing a defamation lawsuit brought against Fox News by Smartmatic said in a ruling on Tuesday that comments made by commentator Tucker Carlson about election fraud could prove the network acted with "actual malice."
In his opinion, New York State Supreme Court Judge David Cohen said the network "turned a blind eye to a litany of outrageous claims about plaintiffs, unprecedented in the history of American elections, so inherently improbable that it evinced a reckless disregard for the truth," The Washington Post reported.
The voting software company filed its $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit after the 2020 election alleging Fox News harmed its company by broadcasting claims it was involved in widespread election fraud.
According to Axios, Carlson brought Sidney Powell on his show, who accused the voting machine company of rigging the 2020 election.
The New York Times reported that Cohen dismissed some, but not all, claims against Rudy Giuliani and all of the claims against Powell and Fox News host Jeanine Pirro.
The judge, however, rejected bids by Fox and hosts Maria Bartiromo and Lou Dobbs to get Smartmatic’s claims dismissed, the newspaper reported.
