Newsmax Media Inc. recently filed in Delaware Superior Court a motion seeking extensive financial and evidentiary sanctions against voting machine company Smartmatic.
Newsmax has argued that Smartmatic misled Newsmax, a special master, and the court about Smartmatic's ability to produce discovery concerning the Department of Justice's ongoing criminal investigation into the activities of Smartmatic and several of its senior executives related to an alleged international bribery scheme involving an election official in the Philippines.
In its motion, Newsmax asserts that for five months Smartmatic misled the court, the special master, and Newsmax to believe that DOJ was blocking critical discovery concerning the likelihood that Smartmatic and its executives may soon face serious, public, criminal bribery charges.
[Go here to read the publicly filed version of Newsmax’s motion detailing Smartmatic’s deception.]
The motion explains that Smartmatic and its counsel repeatedly informed the court that the DOJ was preventing Smartmatic from disclosing relevant information to Newsmax.
Newsmax notes in its motion that, as it turns out, Smartmatic — not the DOJ — was blocking this critical discovery.
Newsmax's motion alleges Smartmatic knowingly misconstrued and omitted key language from DOJ correspondence in an effort to reverse its true meaning, plus withheld a key letter sent by DOJ, which made clear that Smartmatic could disclose information about DOJ's investigation in civil litigation.
Newsmax contends that ongoing and future news reports about Smartmatic's alleged involvement in an international bribery scheme is and will remain devastating to its defamation lawsuit against Newsmax.
Specifically, Newsmax says that these new revelations undermine Smartmatic's claim that it will suffer damage to its future business prospects as a result of 2020 election coverage by Newsmax and others — as opposed to Smartmatic's alleged role in the bribery scheme.
CNN and other media have reported on the ongoing criminal bribery investigation into Smartmatic and several of its executives.
In September of 2023, CNN reported that DOJ filings allege that four Smartmatic executives who acted as coconspirators in the criminal case allegedly "caused or attempted" to funnel $4 million to Filipino election administrator Andres Bautista "in violation of US money laundering laws."
CNN reported that DOJ court filings alleged that "Smartmatic executives used 'slush funds' and 'fake contracts' to facilitate alleged bribes and masked their actions with phony email accounts."
Newsmax has denied Smartmatic's defamation claim in its entirety, noting that it reported fairly on the 2020 election results by giving the public both sides of the dispute.
Newsmax also asserts that the Smartmatic lawsuit poses a danger to the First Amendment and the most basic right of press freedom.
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