Majed Khalil, a Venezuelan businessman, filed a case in federal court in New York in 2021 against Lou Dobbs and attorney Sidney Powell. Fox Corporation and Fox News Network LLC were also named.
During the 2020 presidential election, Khalil sued Fox News Network and anchor Lou Dobbs for slander due to his show and social media posts connecting him with voting software businesses.
According to the complaint, the defendants claimed on December 10, 2020, during a broadcast and accompanying Twitter postings that Khalil and three others conspired with Dominion and Smartmatic to “rig or altered the outcomes” of the election in favor of President Joe Biden.
In this case, even though Powell’s allegations of electoral fraud had been refuted, “Defendants persistently maintained their assertions concerning Khalil,” as his 26-page judgment and order put it. Defendants had reason to mistrust Powell’s authenticity and the accuracy of her findings because of the abundance of publications that refuted her as a credible source and proclaimed the charges against Dominion and Smartmatic false.
The lawsuit doesn’t say Khalil tried to clear his name by letting the defendants know the accusations were false, but Smartmatic and Dominion did. If Plaintiff’s allegations are wrong, those against both defendants must be so. Numerous federal agencies denied any election fraud occurred, and even Trump supporters at the time dismissed Powell’s claims.
In a note to Stanton from Fox attorney K. Winn Allen and Sigmund S. Wissner-Gross (Kahlil’s attorney), the parties stated their intent to file a joint stipulation of dismissal with prejudice early next week.
Allen said the parties had achieved a secret agreement to address this case and were delighted to advise the Court of this development jointly.
The lawsuits against Powell were dropped, and in the autumn, a court ruled that the news organization and Lou Dobbs could not be sued because they had practiced “fair and balanced reporting” under the First Amendment.
Fox canceled Dobbs’s program in February of 2021.
Dominion Voting Systems has sued Fox for defamation, seeking $1.6 billion, on identical allegations relating to the 2020 presidential election.
Fox News’ motion for summary judgment in the lawsuit filed by the voting software business was refused by Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis on Friday. The case will now go to trial in April.
Fox News informed NBC in a statement that First Amendment safeguards for the media’s unfettered freedom to report the news are at stake in this case.
At the next round of these proceedings, “FOX will continue to strongly argue for the rights of free speech and a free press,” the spokesman promised.
