Dominion Newsmax Complaint

IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE
)
US DOMINION, INC., DOMINION )
VOTING SYSTEMS, INC., and )
DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS )
CORPORATION, )
)
Plaintiffs, )
) Case No.
v. )
) JURY TRIAL DEMANDED
NEWSMAX MEDIA INC., )
)
Defendant. )
)
COMPLAINT
November 12, 2020:

“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. . . . There
is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or
was in any way compromised. . . . [W]e can assure you we have the utmost
confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too.”
Joint Statement from the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
November 19, 2020:

“So she says the algorithm was designed to crash allowing these states to shut
down and usher in thousands of fake ballots for Biden. . . . it proves all the
research that our investigative unit here on Stinchfield has been uncovering.”
Newsmax anchor Grant Stinchfield, endorsing and lending credibility to Sidney
Powell’s false claims that Dominion rigged the 2020 election
November 29, 2020:

“In this day and age, people want something
that tends to affirm their views and opinions.”
Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy
1. On the actual facts, the November 2020 election was a huge success for
Dominion. In jurisdiction after jurisdiction, in 28 states, in the midst of a highly
disruptive pandemic, Dominion’s voting machines facilitated efficient and reliable
voting with accurate tallying of votes. Dominion machines created an auditable and
verifiable paper trail. Over literally thousands of hand audits across the country,
those paper ballots confirmed the accuracy of the Dominion machines’ tallies.
Dominion emerged from the election with arguably the most-tested, most-
scrutinized, and most-proven voting technology in recent history. What should have
been a triumph, however, turned to disaster—not because of anything Dominion did,
but because of the lies that influential media companies like Newsmax promoted.
Newsmax helped create and cultivate an alternate reality where up is down, pigs
have wings, and Dominion engaged in a colossal fraud to steal the presidency from
Donald Trump by rigging the vote.
2. During and after the November 2020 election, Newsmax saw a business
opportunity. Spurred by a quest for profits and viewers, Newsmax—a competitor to
media giant Fox—engaged in a race to the bottom with Fox and other outlets such
as One America News Network (OAN) to spread false and manufactured stories
about election fraud. Dominion quickly became the focus of this downward spiral of
lies, as each broadcaster attempted to outdo the others by making the lies more
outrageous, spreading them further, and endorsing them as strongly as possible.
2
3. Over the course of several months, Newsmax manufactured, endorsed,
repeated, and broadcast a series of verifiably false yet devastating lies about
Dominion. These outlandish and far-fetched fictions included that: (1) Dominion
committed election fraud by rigging the 2020 Presidential Election; (2) Dominion’s
software and algorithms manipulated vote counts in the 2020 Presidential Election;
(3) Dominion is owned by or owns a company founded in Venezuela to rig elections
for the dictator Hugo Chávez; (4) Dominion paid kickbacks to government officials
who used its machines in swing states during the 2020 Presidential Election; and (5)
Dominion was involved with alleged voting irregularities in Dallas, Texas, in
2018—even though Dominion’s voting system was not used there.
4. Newsmax spread these lies by broadcasting and promoting interviews
with discredited figures such as Sidney Powell, Rudolph Giuliani, Patrick Byrne,
and Mike Lindell. But Newsmax went further, helping create and nurture the false
and fabricated Dominion narrative by endorsing these known falsehoods as the
“truth,” and falsely claiming the lies had corroborated Newsmax’s own
“investigations.”
5. Newsmax created an entire brand out of defaming Dominion. For
example, Newsmax developed an entire segment on its Greg Kelly Reports show
based on Powell’s provably false claim that “millions of votes” were “shifted by the
software that was designed expressly for” the purpose of rigging the election, which
3
was “exported internationally for profit by the people that are behind Smartmatic
and Dominion,” and called the segment “Democracy or Dominion.”
6. Throughout this time, Newsmax recklessly disregarded the truth;
indeed, Newsmax knew the statements it repeatedly broadcast about Dominion were
lies. Specifically, Newsmax knew the vote tallies from Dominion machines had been
confirmed by numerous independent audits and hand recounts of paper ballots
following the election. Newsmax also knew the lies it was promoting and endorsing
about Dominion had been debunked by an increasingly long list of bipartisan
election officials, election security experts, judges, then-Attorney General William
Barr, then-Director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
Chris Krebs, Election Assistance Commissioner Ben Hovland, Republican Georgia
Governor Brian Kemp, Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger,
and Republican former Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams, to name
several. Newsmax also knew or recklessly disregarded that there was no evidence
4
whatsoever to support its claims that Dominion was created in Venezuela by Hugo
Chavez for the purpose of rigging elections.
7. How did Newsmax deal with the fact that independent experts, loyal
Trump supporters, and Trump Administration officials alike had completely
debunked its lies about Dominion? Newsmax added even more far-fetched
flourishes to its fantastical story, claiming that Trump’s own allies were in on the
“steal”—including specifically that they received “kickbacks” from Dominion to
steal the election—and sold this inherently improbable scenario to its viewers.
8. While Newsmax has claimed it was merely reporting on allegations
being made by President Trump, that “excuse” is also a lie. Newsmax made the
intentional and knowing choice to depict—and then publicize, endorse, and fuel—
the lies about Dominion as truth, creating and promoting an alternate reality that
duped millions of Americans into believing that Dominion stole the 2020 election
from President Trump. It repeatedly broadcast the lies of facially unreliable
sources—lies which Newsmax itself adopted, endorsed, promoted, and
manufactured. And it acted this way because the lies attracted Trump’s public stamp
of approval, attention, and admiration, along with huge ratings boosts and profit
windfalls. In short, this lawsuit is not about Newsmax covering President Trump; it
is about Newsmax courting President Trump, by feeding its audience a torrent of
lies that supported the false narrative that President Trump won the election.
5
9. Weeks after positioning itself on the vanguard of promoting these lies,
in late December 2020, Newsmax admitted (at least with respect to certain of the
lies) that it never had any evidence to support the lies it had been spreading, calling
this a “clarification” of its reporting. Yet even after that admission, Newsmax refuses
to tell its viewers the truth. To this day, Newsmax has never issued anything close
to a retraction of its Dominion lies—has never told its viewers that the numerous
specific lies it fed them for months, endorsed as the truth, even claimed were
corroborated by its own investigations, were in fact false and have been
authoritatively debunked. And while Newsmax has quietly (without any retraction)
removed from its website some material defaming Dominion, it has left other such
material up to this day.
10. If Newsmax cared about the truth—if it cared about informing (rather
than deceiving) its viewers—it would identify for its viewers each specific lie it
broadcast, promoted, and endorsed in November and December 2020, tell its viewers
in no uncertain terms that those lies were false, and explain to its viewers all the
voluminous evidence debunking those lies. That would be the right thing to do, even
though it would not reverse the damage already done to Dominion. But recent history
is littered with examples of former loyalists of President Trump who felt his wrath
after telling the truth about the 2020 election, including former Attorney General
William Barr, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, Georgia Secretary of State Brad
6
Raffensperger, and even former Vice President Mike Pence. So Newsmax refuses to
level with its audience, choosing profits and increased viewership over truth.
Dominion brings this lawsuit to set the record straight, to vindicate its rights, to hold
Newsmax accountable, and to recover damages for the devastating economic harm
done to its business.
PARTIES AND RELEVANT NON-PARTIES
11. Plaintiff US Dominion, Inc. is a for-profit Delaware corporation with
its principal place of business in Denver, Colorado. It is majority-owned by a private
equity firm whose principal place of business is in New York, New York.
12. Plaintiff Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. is a for-profit Delaware
corporation with its principal place of business in Denver, Colorado, and has
maintained an office in New York since July 2009. It is a wholly owned subsidiary
of US Dominion, Inc.
13. Plaintiff Dominion Voting Systems Corporation is a for-profit Ontario
corporation with its principal place of business in Toronto, Ontario. It is a wholly
owned subsidiary of US Dominion, Inc. (US Dominion, Inc., Dominion Voting
Systems, Inc., and Dominion Voting Systems Corporation are collectively referred
to as “Dominion.”)
14. Defendant Newsmax Media, Inc., oversees the Newsmax news channel
that is distributed through most leading cable, satellite, and streaming television
7
service providers; the news website Newsmax.com, through which it streams its
news programming and publishes articles based on its programming; mobile apps
for Apple and Android devices; and various social media accounts, including the
@newsmax Twitter handle and on YouTube. The company was formed in and is
organized under the laws of Delaware and has its principal place of business in West
Palm Beach, Florida. Before Election Day 2020, Newsmax TV was available to over
70 million American households.1 From the beginning of July 2020 to the week
before Election Day, Newsmax averaged 58,000 viewers from 7 to 10 p.m. on
weekdays.2 The week after the election, Newsmax’s ratings jumped to almost ten
times Newsmax’s pre-election ratings.3 In the same period, daytime viewership also
increased nearly ten-fold.4 In February 2021, Newsmax claimed that it had
generated five million downloads of the mobile apps through which it has streamed
its news coverage since the 2020 election, with Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy
1
John Eggerton, Newsmax Grabs Fox Distribution Executive, Next|TV (May 14, 2019),
https://www.nexttv.com/news/newsmax-grabs-fox-distribution-executive.
2
David Bauder, Trump-friendly Newsmax Seeks to Cut into Fox’s Viewership, Associated Press
(Nov. 18, 2020), https://apnews.com/article/newsmax-sudden-competitor-fox-news-
bddb5f123fe8d187570129a8425c7303.
3
Id.
4
Id.
8
celebrating “that America is making the switch to Newsmax TV for fair, unbiased
journalism.”5
15. Christopher Ruddy is the Chief Executive Officer of Newsmax Media,
Inc.6 At all times, Ruddy was an agent of Newsmax. Ruddy founded Newsmax in
1998 as a conservative news website. Ruddy then launched the Newsmax cable TV
channel in 2014. He and former President Donald Trump are “friends,” and spoke
routinely after the 2020 Presidential Election.7 By the end of November 2020, Ruddy
estimated that Newsmax was reaching “over thirty million Americans each month
through our different outlets.”8
16. Greg Kelly is the host of Greg Kelly Reports, which airs weeknights at
7 p.m. Eastern Time on Newsmax TV.9 At all relevant times, Greg Kelly Reports
broadcast from New York, New York.10 At all relevant times, Kelly was an agent of
5
Bill Hoffman, More Than 5 Million Newsmax App Downloads!, Newsmax (Feb. 25, 2021, 2:08
PM) https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/app-newsmax-apple-store-google-
play/2021/02/25/id/1011529/.
6
Christiane Amanpour, Trump Confidant: Mr. President, Please Testify, CNN (Dec. 17, 2019),
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/12/17/chris-ruddy-trump-confidant-please-testify-
amanpour-sot-vpx.cnn.
7
Isaac Chotiner, Why Newsmax Supports Trump’s False Voter-Fraud Claims, The New Yorker
(Nov. 24, 2020), https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-newsmax-supports-trumps-
false-voter-fraud-claims.
8
Id.
9
Greg Kelly Reports, Newsmax (Mar. 3, 2021), https://www.newsmaxtv.com/kelly (last visited
Aug. 5, 2021).
10
Kasey Caminiti, A Man With a New York State of Mind, DuJour,
https://dujour.com/culture/interview-greg-kelly-reports-newsmax-ray-kelly-nyc/ (last visited
Aug. 5, 2021).
9
Newsmax. Kelly was the first Newsmax host to draw more than 1 million viewers
in his time slot.11 His show has built an audience about four times larger than that of
CNBC’s heavily promoted The News with Shepard Smith, which airs at the same
time as Greg Kelly Reports.12 On December 7, 2020, Greg Kelly Reports out-rated
The Story with Martha MacCallum on Fox News for the first time ever, according
to Nielsen ratings.13 Kelly also hosts “The Greg Kelly Podcast” for Newsmax and
“The Greg Kelly Show” on WABC radio.14 On information and belief, Newsmax
operates and exercises control over the Twitter account @gregkellyusa, which is
evidenced by the fact that the @gregkellyusa account’s profile lists and tags the
account for @newsmax,15 and the fact that tweets are posted to the @gregkellyusa
account during live broadcasts (when Kelly could not post himself).16 Newsmax
11
Justin Peters, The King of Dead-End TV, Slate (Nov. 27, 2020, 5:45 AM),
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/newsmax-greg-kelly-fox-news-trump.html.
12
Michael M. Grynbaum & John Koblin, Newsmax, Once a Right-Wing Also-Ran, Is Rising, and
Trump Approves, Baltimore Sun (Nov. 22, 2020, 4:55 PM), https://slate.com/news-and-
politics/2020/11/newsmax-greg-kelly-fox-news-trump.html.
13
Brian Stelter, Newsmax TV Scores a Ratings Win over Fox News for the First Time Ever, CNN
Business (Dec. 8, 2020, 6:53 PM), https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/08/media/newsmax-fox-news-
ratings/index.html.
14
Podcast: The Greg Kelly Show, 77 WABC Talk Radio, https://wabcradio.com/podcast/greg-
kelly-show/ (last visited Aug. 5, 2021).
15
Greg Kelly (@gregkellyusa), Twitter, https://twitter.com/gregkellyusa (last visited Aug. 5,
2021).
16
See, e.g., Greg Kelly (@gregkellyusa), Twitter (Mar. 25, 2021, 1:43 PM),
https://twitter.com/gregkellyusa?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eau
thor (during Kelly’s live radio broadcast).
10
promotes Greg Kelly Reports across its social media accounts, including the Twitter
handle @gregkellyusa.17
17. Grant Stinchfield hosts Stinchfield on Newsmax TV, which airs on
weekdays at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.18 At all relevant times, Stinchfield was an agent
of Newsmax. Stinchfield is one of Newsmax’s top-five rated shows.19 In addition to
his television show, Stinchfield hosts the radio show “The Stinchfield Report” from
3 to 7 p.m. weekdays on KLIF/570 AM.20 Stinchfield promotes his shows across
social media, including through the Twitter handle @stinchfield1776.21 On
information and belief, Newsmax operates and exercises control over the Twitter
account @stinchfield1776, which is evidenced by the fact that the @stinchfield1776
account’s profile lists his affiliation with Newsmax. Stinchfield also runs the website
GrantsRant.com.22
17
See, e.g., Newsmax (@newsmax), Twitter (Aug. 4, 2021),
https://twitter.com/newsmax/status/1423085771599204357 (last visited Aug. 5, 2021).
18
Stinchfield, Newsmax, https://www.newsmaxtv.com/stinchfield (last visited Aug. 5, 2021).
19
Stinchfield Ratings, Cable Rankings, https://ctv.kwayisi.org/networks/nmax/stinchfield/ (enter
date range in “From” and “To” fields) (last visited Aug. 5, 2021).
20
Grant Stinchfield Biography, Age, Wiki, Profession, Wife, Family, Networth & More,
ARealNews (June 24, 2021), https://arealnews.com/grant-stinchfield-biography/ (last visited July
5, 2021).
21
Grant Stinchfield (@stinchfield1776) (July 15, 2021, 8:35 PM),
https://twitter.com/stinchfield1776/status/1415847546354868227 (last visited Aug. 5, 2021); see
also Newsmax (@newsmax), Twitter (July 29, 2021, 8:30 PM),
https://twitter.com/newsmax/status/1420919574396952587 (last visited July 5, 2021).
22
Grant’s Rant, https://www.grantsrant.com/ (last visited Aug. 5, 2021).
11
18. Emerald Robinson is Newsmax’s White House correspondent,
appearing regularly on Newsmax TV.23 At all relevant times, Robinson was an agent
of Newsmax. On information and belief, Newsmax operates and exercises control
over the Twitter account @EmeraldRobinson, which is evidenced by the fact that
the @EmeraldRobinson account’s profile lists her affiliation with Newsmax.24
19. Sidney Powell is an attorney and the author of a self-published book
that purports to be a seminal work in “exposing ‘the Deep State.’” 25 Powell briefly
pursued spurious litigation challenging the 2020 Presidential Election beginning on
November 25, 2020, but her cases had all been summarily dismissed by federal
judges by December 9, 2020. Those judges called Powell’s lawsuits “nothing but
speculation and conjecture,”26 and “largely based on anonymous witnesses, hearsay,
and irrelevant analysis of unrelated elections.”27 They likewise concluded that even
those witnesses and so-called “experts” “reach implausible conclusions, often
because they are derived from wholly unreliable sources.”28 Powell was also the
23
Emerald Robinson, Newsmax TV Names Emerald Robinson White House Correspondent,
Newsmax (Feb. 11, 2020, 8:21 AM), https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/newsmax-tv-emerald-
robinson-media-white-house-correspondent/2020/02/11/id/953545/.
24
Emerald Robinson (@EmeraldRobinson), Twitter,
https://twitter.com/EmeraldRobinson?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%
5Eauthor (last visited Aug. 5, 2021).
25
Sidney Powell, https://www.sidneypowell.com/shop (last visited Aug. 5, 2021).
26
Op. & Order at 34, King v. Whitmer, No. 20-cv-12134 (E.D. Mich. Dec. 7, 2020) [Dkt. 62].
27
Order at 24-25, Bowyer v. Ducey, No. 2-20-cv-02321 (D. Ariz. Dec. 9, 2020) [Dkt. 84].
28
Id.
12
attorney for Michael Flynn, and in that capacity sought to have President Trump
pardon him. President Trump pardoned Flynn on November 25, 2020—on literally
the same day that Powell filed the first of her baseless lawsuits challenging the 2020
Presidential Election results.29 (According to Powell, President Trump himself told
her the news that the pardon was forthcoming.)30 Newsmax repeatedly hosted and
replayed Powell on its programming in the weeks and months following the 2020
Presidential Election to promote falsehoods about Dominion. As a result of Powell’s
repeated lies about Dominion and her frivolous election fraud lawsuits, she currently
faces sanctions in Michigan.31 During a hearing on the sanctions motion, the
presiding federal judge observed that the “volume” of Powell’s purported evidence
did not “equate with legitimacy or veracity” and that Powell had submitted
“fantastical” evidence in support of her claims.
20. Rudolph Giuliani is the former mayor of New York City who has more
recently found work as a YouTube podcast host, a radio show host, and an attorney
to President Donald Trump and the Trump Campaign. Giuliani never signed any
complaint concerning the 2020 election—whether for the Trump Campaign or
29
Spencer S. Hsu & Ann E. Marimow, Michael Flynn judge says pardon doesn’t mean ex-national
security adviser is innocent, Wash. Post (Dec. 8, 2020),
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/michael-flynn-case-
dismissed/2020/12/08/31abb5de-0975-11eb-a166-dc429b380d10_story.html.
30
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-announces-pardon-for-mike-flynn
31
Brent Kendall & Alexa Corse, Trump 2020 Election Lawsuits Lead to Requests to Discipline
Lawyers, Wall St. J. (May 9, 2021, 10:00 AM), https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-2020-
election-lawsuits-lead-to-requests-to-discipline-lawyers-11620568801.
13
anyone else—that contained any allegations about Dominion. Newsmax broadcast
false statements by Giuliani on its programming in the weeks following the 2020
Presidential Election to promote falsehoods about Dominion. On June 24, 2021,
New York suspended Giuliani’s law license for making “knowing false and
misleading factual statements to support his claim that the presidential election was
stolen from his client [Donald Trump].”32 On July 7, 2021, Washington, D.C.
suspended Giuliani’s law license as well.33
21. Michael Lindell is the founder and CEO of My Pillow, Inc.
(“MyPillow”),34 one of Newsmax’s biggest sponsors. Beginning in 2004, when
Lindell founded the MyPillow company, Lindell personally starred in MyPillow’s
infomercials, which claimed that MyPillow would help people suffering from
fibromyalgia, insomnia, migraines and headaches, sleep apnea, snoring, TMJ, and
restless leg syndrome.35 In 2016, prosecutors alleged that these claims were “untrue
32
Order, In re Giuliani, No. 2021-00506 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. June 24, 2021),
https://www.nycourts.gov/courts/ad1/calendar/List_Word/2021/06_Jun/24/PDF/Matter%20of%2
0Giuliani%20(2021-00506)%20PC.pdf; Jim Mustian, New York Court Suspends Rudy Giuliani’s
law license, Associated Press (June 24, 2021), https://apnews.com/article/rudy-giuliani-new-york-
law-license-suspended-c67f4504a22f8642d6096f29e3a5c51e.
33
Katelyn Polantz, Rudy Giuliani suspended from practicing law in Washington, D.C., CNN (July
7, 2021), https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/07/politics/rudy-giuliani-suspended-law-
washington/index.html.
34
Mike’s Story, My Pillow, https://www.mypillow.com/mikes-story (last visited Aug. 5, 2021).
35
See Complaint, California v. MyPillow, Inc., No. HG16836619 (Ca. Super. Ct., Alameda Cty.
Oct. 26, 2016).
14
or misleading.”36 Rather than defend the truthfulness of MyPillow’s claims in court,
Lindell opted to pay $995,000 in civil penalties.37 Similarly, the Better Business
Bureau revoked the accreditation of MyPillow and lowered its rating to “F” based
on a pattern of complaints by customers.38 In the first three quarters of 2020,
MyPillow spent more than $62 million on TV ads, with nearly 99% of it going to
cable channels like Newsmax.39 Lindell has been called “one of the most prominent
peddlers of bogus conspiracy theories” about the 2020 election, including the lies
about Dominion.40 Newsmax knowingly broadcast lies about Dominion to a global
audience by inviting Lindell on the air, where it knew he would repeat those lies.
And Lindell has continued to spread these lies even after Dominion filed a
defamation lawsuit against him on February 22, 2021,41 most recently producing and
starring in a series of “docu-movies” dedicated to defaming Dominion.42 Lindell has
36
Id.
37
See Final Judgment, California v. MyPillow, Inc., No. HG16836619 (Ca. Super. Ct., Alameda
Cty. Oct. 31, 2016).
38
My Pillow, Better Business Bureau, https://www.bbb.org/us/mn/chaska/profile/pillows/my-
pillow-inc-0704-96152336 (last visited Aug. 5, 2020).
39
Tiffany Hsu, As Corporate America Flees Trump, MyPillow’s C.E.O. Stands by
Him, N.Y. Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/business/media/mypillow-mike-lindell-
trump.html (Feb. 22, 2021).
40
Matt Gertz, Pillow Fight: The Right-Wing Media Competition for Mike Lindell’s Affection (and
Money), Media Matters for America (Feb. 5, 2021), https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-
news/pillow-fight-right-wing-media-competition-mike-lindells-affection-and-money.
41
US Dominion Inc. v. My Pillow, Inc., No. 21-cv-00445 (D.D.C. Feb. 22, 2021).
42
Absolute Proof (2021); Absolute Interference (2021); Absolutely 9-0 (2021).
15
lied about Dominion rigging the election to this day and even promised his
supporters that Trump will be reinstated as President by “August 13.”43
22. Dick Morris is a political commentator who rose to notoriety in 1996
when he was fired from his role on the campaign for President Bill Clinton.44 Morris
has been called “an amateur prognosticator with ulterior motives,” whose views are
often “willfully illogical and wrong.”45 Morris has been called out in the past for
crossing journalistic ethical lines by “accepting paid advertisements” on his personal
website “from candidates that he discussed on the air at Fox.”46 Morris is a regular
Newsmax contributor, and Newsmax also manages Morris’s email list. Newsmax
knowingly broadcast lies about Dominion to a global audience by inviting Morris
on the air, where it knew he would repeat those lies. Morris was rewarded by
Newsmax with his own show called Dick Morris Democracy, which began airing on
Newsmax in February 2021.47
43
Mia Jankowicz, Mike Lindell Set August 13 as the Date in His Bonkers Theory that Trump Will
Be Reinstated as President, Insider (July 6, 2021, 4:53 AM),
https://www.businessinsider.com/mike-lindell-claims-august-13-trump-reinstatement-2021-7.
44
Clarence Page, The Dick Morris Story: An Affair to Not Remember, Chicago Tribune (Sept. 1,
1996), https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1996-09-01-9609010307-story.html.
45
Ezra Deutsch-Feldman & Michael Fitzgerald, Dick Morris Is Lying, Part 8, New Republic (Mar.
23, 2011), https://newrepublic.com/article/85668/dick-morris-obama-2012-japan-economy.
46
Fox Cuts Ties to Commentator Dick Morris, Associated Press (Feb. 5, 2013),
https://apnews.com/article/9e36da7f0e2e47e1a6258d070b216d13.
47
Dick Morris Democracy, Newsmax, https://www.newsmaxtv.com/Shows/Dick-Morris-
Democracy (last visited Aug. 6, 2021).
16
23. Patrick Byrne is the former CEO of the internet discount retailer
Overstock.com, and is yet another self-styled “expert” whom Newsmax brought on
its network to lie about Dominion and the 2020 election. Byrne has a long prior
history of fabricating fantastical stories without ever providing a shred of evidence
to support their truth, in order to serve his own personal interests. For instance, Byrne
was previously ordered to pay an approximately $1 million defamation judgment for
falsely accusing a Canadian businessman of being connected to “Osama bin Laden’s
favorite financier,” the Colombian drug cartel, the Russian mafia, and al Qaeda’s
Golden Chain.48 The court concluded that Byrne and his collaborators had “engaged
in a calculated and ruthless campaign to inflict as much damage on [his victim’s]
reputation as they could achieve. It is clear on the evidence that their intention was
to conduct a vendetta in which the truth … was of no consequence. Their mission
was to expose what they conceive to be corrupt business practices … [Their victim]
became a convenient means to that end, even when he himself could not be
demonstrated to be corrupt.”49
24. Byrne has publicly admitted that he had already committed back in
August 2020 to the narrative that the 2020 Presidential Election was going to be
48
Nazerali v. Mitchell, No. S116979, 2016 BCSC 810, Corrected Judgment at 97 (Sup. Ct. of
British Columbia May 6, 2016), available at
https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/bcsc/doc/2016/2016bcsc810/2016bcsc810.pdf.
49
Id.
17
rigged.50 In public media appearances, Byrne refers to this narrative as the “last act”
of a fantastical storyline that he first started to spread in August 2019,51 after it was
revealed that he had had a romantic affair with the now-notorious Russian agent,
Maria Butina, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison after being indicted by
federal prosecutors for trying to infiltrate powerful political circles in the United
States at the direction of the Russian government.52
25. This storyline began when Byrne abruptly resigned his board seat and
position as CEO at Overstock in August 2019 after his affair with Butina was
revealed, and Overstock found itself unable to renew its insurance policy as long as
Byrne remained in charge.53 In an apparent attempt to rationalize his relationship
50
Patrick Byrne, How DJT Lost the White House, Introduction: Why I Was Involved Before
November 3 & What I Learned Because I Was (1.3), Deep Capture (Jan. 24,
2021), https://www.deepcapture.com/2021/01/how-djt-lost-the-white-house-introduction-why-i-
was-involved-before-november-3-and-what-i-learned-by-doing-so/; Tech Millionaire Funds
Hacking Team 2020 Election was 100% Rigged, OAN (Nov. 20, 2020), previously available
at https://www.oann.com/tech-millionaire-funds-hacking-team-20-election-100-rigged/
[https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/67795b8f-2934-4361-81bd-
710b2250575a?token=37f52d99-127d-4b48-b8dc-e5e99babfaaa]; Patrick Byrne: Dissecting The
Electronic Steal, Operation Freedom (Nov. 24, 2020), www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fs3tKtmiEA.
51
Patrick M. Byrne (CEO of Overstock.com) EXPOSES Deep State Election Fraud, Rumble (Dec.
23, 2020), https://rumble.com/vc4l9j-patrick-m.-byrne-ceo-of-overstock.com-exposes-deep-state-
election-fraud.html.
52
Michael Corkery, Overstock C.E.O. Takes Aim at ‘Deep State’ After Romance With Russian
Agent, N.Y. Times (Aug. 15, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/15/business/overstock-
paul-byrne-maria-butina-affair.html.
53
Abha Bhattarai, Inside Overstock.com, where a firebrand CEO and ‘Deep State’ intrigue took
center stage, Washington Post (Sept. 27, 2019),
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/09/26/inside-overstockcom-where-firebrand-
ceo-deep-state-intrigue-took-center-stage/.
18
with Butina—to portray himself as a patriotic American rather than an asset of a
Russian agent—Byrne began to claim that the FBI had directed him to engage in a
romantic relationship with Butina.54 This is a claim that former FBI Director James
Comey said was “‘ridiculous,’” adding “‘[t]he FBI doesn’t work that way.’”55
Similarly, another former FBI agent with knowledge of FBI procedures called
Byrne’s claims “absolutely outrageous and impossible to believe,” and “maybe he
is going to be facing some serious criminal problems and now he’s trying to create
a smokescreen. . . . It’s absolutely ludicrous.”56
26. As if this storyline were not strange enough, Byrne would later publicly
claim that the FBI eventually told him to quit his affair with Butina, and instead
asked him to facilitate an $18 million bribe of Hillary Clinton, which Byrne claims
to have done on January 14, 2016.57 Byrne made these claims publicly as early as
October 6, 2020, on his personal blog, deepcapture.com,58 and then added to the
54
David Shortell and Caroline Kelly, Former officials deny ex-CEO’s claim FBI asked him to
pursue Maria Butina, CNN (Aug. 23, 2019), https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/23/politics/patrick-
byrne-maria-butina-fbi-relationship-cnntv/index.html.
55
Id.
56
Former FBI Special Agent John Iannarelli Says Patrick Byrne’s Claims Are “Impossible to
Believe,” Fox News (Aug. 23, 2019), https://video.foxnews.com/v/6076376906001#sp=show-
clips.
57
58
Patrick Byrne, The Hillary Clinton Bribery-&-Blackmail & Maria Butina Intoxicate-Rape-&-
Murder Deep State Stings Finale, Deep Capture (Oct. 6, 2020),
https://www.deepcapture.com/2020/10/finale-the-deep-states-hillary-clinton-bribery-blackmail-
sting-the-maria-butina-rape-murder-gambit/.
19
claims in later public media appearances. The $18 million bribe was supposedly
(according to Byrne) part of a plot by then-President Obama to ensure that he could
“control” Clinton once she became President.59 Byrne claims the “operation” was
called “Project Snowglobe,”60 and that he has seen “the bank record” to show the
bribe was paid.61 In his nonsensical storyline, Byrne further claims that President
Obama’s ultimate goal was to ensure that then-First Lady Michelle Obama would
serve as President after Clinton.62 Also according to Byrne, this was the second bribe
accepted by Hillary Clinton—a follow-up to an initial $20 million bribe Clinton had
supposedly already accepted from Turkey by the time Byrne claims the FBI enlisted
him in the “sting.”63 And in another ridiculous twist, Byrne claims that he used
information about proper entrapment methodologies that he learned from his “FBI
handlers” to entrap former leaders at the CIA and FBI, including former FBI Director
James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan, into approving the rape and
murder of Maria Butina (which Byrne then declined to carry out), in some sort of
59
60
Id.
61
Dr Corsi NEWS 12-24-20: Patrick Byrne Explains Trump Path To Victory, Rumble (Dec. 24,
2020), https://rumble.com/vc5kbh-dr-corsi-news-12-24-20-patrick-byrne explains-trump-path-to-
victory.html.
62
63
Id.
20
scheme to give Byrne leverage over those officials.64 Finally, according to Byrne,
former Attorney General William Barr “knows” about “Project Snowglobe,” and the
entire plot will eventually be disclosed in the report of DOJ special counsel John
Durham’s investigation into the origins of the FBI’s Russia investigation—because,
as Byrne claims, “I know what’s in the Durham Report.”65
27. Byrne has publicly claimed that this set of alleged experiences
somehow tipped him off that the 2020 election would be rigged back in August
2020,66 at which time he set out to hire a group he calls the “Bad News Bears” to
“reverse-engineer” the supposed election-rigging to come.67 (Elsewhere, Byrne has
64
Patrick Byrne, The Hillary Clinton Bribery-&-Blackmail & Maria Butina Intoxicate-Rape-&-
Murder Deep State Stings Finale, Deep Capture (Oct. 6, 2020),
65
66
Patrick Byrne, How DJT Lost the White House, Introduction: Why I Was Involved Before
November 3 & What I Learned Because I Was (1.3), Deep Capture (Jan. 24,
2021), https://www.deepcapture.com/2021/01/how-djt-lost-the-white-house-introduction-why-i-
was-involved-before-november-3-and-what-i-learned-by-doing-so/; Tech Millionaire Funds
Hacking Team 2020 Election was 100% Rigged, OAN (Nov. 20, 2020), previously available
at https://www.oann.com/tech-millionaire-funds-hacking-team-20-election-100-rigged/
[https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/67795b8f-2934-4361-81bd-
710b2250575a?token=37f52d99-127d-4b48-b8dc-e5e99babfaaa]; Patrick Byrne: Dissecting The
Electronic Steal, Operation Freedom (Nov. 24, 2020), www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fs3tKtmiEA.
67
See Patrick Byrne, How DJT Lost the White House, Introduction: Why I Was Involved Before
November 3 & What I Learned Because I Was (1.3), Deep Capture (Jan. 24, 2021),
https://www.deepcapture.com/2021/01/how-djt-lost-the-white-house-introduction-why-i-was-
involved-before-november-3-and-what-i-learned-by-doing-so/.
21
claimed he “knew” since October 2018 that the 2020 Presidential Election was going
to be rigged.)68 As part of his “Bad News Bears” efforts, Byrne takes credit for
personally funding and working closely with Russell Ramsland, who was peddling
lies back in 2018 about a Dallas congressional election—lies about a competitor of
Dominion’s whose equipment was used in that election, that were debunked but that
ended up being very similar to the lies spread about Dominion in the 2020
Presidential Election. To fit his preconceived narrative, Byrne falsely accused
Dominion of rigging the 2018 Dallas election, even though Dominion’s machines
were not used in the Dallas election, and then transposed those same discredited
theories onto Dominion and the 2020 Presidential Election. Byrne has also boasted
about working closely with Ramsland’s team to create a so-called “forensic report”
about the 2020 vote in Antrim County, Michigan. That report falsely accused
Dominion of switching votes in Antrim County to Joe Biden from Donald Trump,
and Byrne and others published and promoted that false report to spread further
disinformation and lies about Dominion (as discussed in more detail below).
28. Byrne’s partnership with other promoters of the false Dominion
election fraud narrative has not been limited to Ramsland. For instance, Byrne has
also boasted of having sent documents and information to Mike Lindell after Byrne
68
22
lost access to President Trump in late 2020. And Byrne served as CEO of Defending
the Republic, the organization launched by Sidney Powell to help fund her own
efforts to falsely accuse Dominion of rigging the 2020 election.
29. Using the same playbook that was used for the false “forensic report”
in Antrim County, Byrne has partnered with OAN, Sidney Powell, and others to
fund the sham election “audit” in Arizona. In addition, he has published a book, The
Deep Rig, and a feature film of the same name, in which he uses some of the same
false and manufactured “evidence” he has presented in his blog posts and media
appearances to further promote lies about Dominion rigging elections.
30. Finally, apparently in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court declining
to hear a case seeking to throw out the 2020 election results, Byrne falsely claimed
in early December 2020 that Chief Justice John Roberts “may be compromised,”
because his name according to Byrne appears on the flight manifest of the notorious
Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet.69 (Byrne has also implicated several U.S. agencies in
allegedly assassinating Epstein.70) And in yet another of his fantastical lies, Byrne
has falsely asserted that DNC staffer Seth Rich had been murdered not as part of a
robbery, but because Rich’s “role” “in the DNC” had “put him in a position to have
69
Patrick Byrne & Dave Janda, Patrick Byrne: Dissecting The Election Fraud, Operation Freedom
(Dec. 9, 2020), available at https://rumble.com/vbpgi7-patrick-byrne-dissecting-the-election-
fraud.html.
70
Id.
23
known . . . that the Dominion servers had been used in the [2016 Democratic]
primaries to steal from Bernie [Sanders] to give to Hillary [Clinton]”; according to
Byrne, “[t]hey could not have let a guy who had the kind of knowledge that we’re
now talking about, to walk around. They couldn’t let him walk around if he was not
on board.”71
31. Russell Ramsland is a failed Republican congressional candidate and
conspiracy theorist who has publicly claimed, among other things, that George
Soros—who was born in 1930—helped form the “Deep State” in Nazi Germany in
the 1930s along with President George H.W. Bush’s father, the Muslim
Brotherhood, and “leftists.”72 Well before the 2020 election, Ramsland had publicly
peddled a false story about the 2018 U.S. congressional election in Dallas, Texas,
and the 2019 gubernatorial election in Kentucky, falsely claiming that those
elections had been rigged by voting machines with links to Smartmatic and using
Venezuelan election-stealing software controlled by a George Soros operative, and
that votes had been sent to CIA-funded databases in Spain where they were changed
and sent back to the United States. Ramsland’s false claims went nowhere. Even the
Republican Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton—a staunch ally of President
71
Patrick Byrne: Blowing Open the Election Steal, Operation Freedom (Dec. 8, 2020),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lGdRb8IZKA.
72
John Savage, Texas Tea Partiers Are Freaking Out Over ‘Deep State’ Conspiracy Theories,
Vice (Sep. 20, 2018), https://www.vice.com/en/article/mbwgxx/texas-tea-partiers-are-freaking-
out-over-deep-state-conspiracy-theories.
24
Trump—rejected Ramsland’s claims about the 2018 Dallas congressional election,
explaining in a public statement: “In this case, after a thorough investigation by our
office with the assistance of election systems experts, cybersecurity experts, and the
FBI, we found the claims in this case were unverifiable, and an audit of the voting
records confirmed the outcome of the election.”73
32. Despite Ramsland’s claims having been debunked, Patrick Byrne,
Sidney Powell, Rudolph Giuliani and others took the lies Ramsland had tried to
peddle in 2018 and promoted them to a massive global audience, working with
Newsmax, OAN, Fox and other media outlets to give them far greater reach than
they had before. Some (including Byrne) even took it one step further, revising
Ramsland’s false story about the Dallas 2018 congressional election to promote the
new lie that it was Dominion that had rigged that 2018 election—even though
Dominion machines were not used in that election.
33. Ramsland filed numerous affidavits recycling and repurposing his
absurd 2018 election fraud stories in support of lawsuits brought by Sidney Powell
and others seeking to throw out 2020 presidential election results in several states
that Joe Biden won. No court found any of Ramsland’s affidavits submitted in those
cases to have any merit, and in fact Ramsland was judicially determined to have
73
Emma Brown, Aaron C. Davis, Jon Swaine and Josh Dawsey, The making of a myth (May 9,
2021), https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2021/trump-election-fraud-
texas-businessman-ramsland-asog/.
25
provided “materially false information” in support of his claims of vote
manipulation74 in one of these cases when he referenced and cited locations in
Minnesota when alleging voter fraud in Michigan.75
34. Ramsland’s crowning “achievement” in the 2020 election, however,
was when he was brought in by Patrick Byrne, Rudolph Giuliani and others to write
up a purportedly independent “report” on the election results in Antrim County,
Michigan, that fed the preconceived Dominion election fraud narrative by falsely
claiming that Dominion machines were designed to and did switch votes from
Trump to Biden. Despite being falsely touted as the conclusions of an independent
“audit,” the report was from the start a transparent attempt by Ramsland, at the
behest of Byrne and Giuliani others, to falsely fit what actually happened in Antrim
County into the preconceived false election fraud narrative. Antrim County officials
quickly explained that Ramsland’s Antrim County report was “riddled with false and
unsupported claims, baseless attacks, and incorrect use of technical terms,”76 and the
former acting director of the Election Assistance Commission’s Voting System
74
Rule to Show Cause, Page v. Oath Inc., No. S20C-07-030 (Del. Super. Ct. Dec. 18, 2020).
75
Clara Hendrickson, Affidavit in Michigan lawsuit seeking to overturn election makes wildly
inaccurate claims about vote, PolitiFact (Dec. 4, 2020),
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/dec/04/russell-james-ramsland-jr/affidavit-
michigan-lawsuit-seeking-overturn-electi/.
76
See Ali Swenson, Report spreads debunked claims about Dominion machines in Michigan
county, AP News (Dec. 15, 2020), https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-
afs:Content:9847904839.
26
Testing and Certification program—who is actually an expert in election voting
systems—said the report demonstrated a “grave misunderstanding” of Antrim
County’s voting system and “a lack of knowledge of election technology and
process.”77 Michigan’s Attorney General and Secretary of State issued a joint
statement that Ramsland’s report was “critically flawed, filled with dramatic
conclusions without any evidence to support them.”78 And the Republican-led
Michigan Senate Oversight Committee released a 55-page report, which stated that
“The Committee found no evidence of widespread or systemic fraud in Michigan's
prosecution of the 2020 election” and specifically called out individuals like
Ramsland for their false claims about systemic fraud in Michigan, stating that they
“have been utilizing misleading and false information about Antrim County to raise
money or publicity for their own ends” and recommending that the Michigan
Attorney General investigate such misconduct.79 Nonetheless, knowingly or with
reckless disregard for the truth, Newsmax broadcast this known peddler of lies and
promoted his false Antrim County report to amplify its defamatory campaign against
77
See Todd Spangler, Former election security chief for Trump knocks down Antrim County
report, The Detroit Free Press (Dec. 16, 2020),
https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/12/16/antrim-county-report-debunked-
by-former-trump-election-official/3923499001/.
78
AG. SOS: Plaintiff’s Report in Antrim County Election Lawsuit Demonstrates Lack of Credible
Evidence in Widespread Fraud or Wrongdoing, Michigan Dep’t of Attorney General (Dec. 14,
2020), https://www.michigan.gov/ag/0,4534,7-359-92297_47203-547422--,00.html.
79
MICH. S. OVERSIGHT COMM., REPORT ON THE NOVEMBER 2020 ELECTION IN MICHIGAN (Apr 9,
2021), https://misenategopcdn.s3.us-east-
1.amazonaws.com/99/doccuments/20210623/SMPO_2020ElectionReport.pdf.
27
Dominion, conforming to the pre-conceived false narrative that Dominion had
rigged the election.
35. “Fox” is Fox News Network and Fox Corp., the self-described “most
watched television news channel” controlled by Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch, and
a competitor of Newsmax.
36. “OAN” is One America News Network, a television news channel
controlled by the Herring family and another competitor of Newsmax.
37. Newsmax, Fox, and OAN each broadcast a series of defamatory
statements about Dominion in order to compete in a race to the bottom for
viewership, ratings, and profit.
FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS
John Poulos Founds and Builds a Technology Company That

Allows Local Election Officials to Easily Audit Paper Ballots
38. Until the defamatory attacks starting after the 2020 election, Dominion
was a thriving voting technology company. In 2002, Dominion CEO John Poulos
came up with an idea to help people with vision impairments vote independently on
paper ballots, so he founded a business out of his basement in Toronto as Dominion
Voting Systems Corporation. From the beginning, Dominion’s objective has been
accurate, transparent, and accessible elections. All Dominion systems are capable of
producing paper records and are 100% auditable, with testing, reviews, audits, and
recounts subject to oversight and verification by all political parties. Indeed,
28
Dominion has been at the forefront of developing the technology to produce
auditable paper records. Dominion was, until recently, one of the fastest-growing
technology companies in North America. While Dominion was known within the
voting machine industry and supplied machines in 28 states, it was little-known to
the public at large.
39. As it grew, Dominion developed technology to solve many of the
technical and voter-intent issues that came to light as a result of the 2000 election.
Its systems are certified under standards promulgated by the U.S. Election
Assistance Commission (“EAC”), reviewed and tested by independent testing
laboratories accredited by the EAC, and were designed to be auditable and include
a paper ballot backup to verify results.
40. Dominion Voting Systems Corporation procured its first U.S. contract
in July 2009, to provide voting machine technology to over 50 counties in the state
of New York. After procuring that contract, Dominion Voting Systems Corporation
established a New York office, hired 20 employees, set up a manufacturing supply
in New York, and by the end of July, incorporated a subsidiary company, Dominion
Voting Systems, Inc., in Delaware. Poulos voluntarily worked with the Committee
on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”) to ensure it knew who he was
and who was invested in Dominion. For the next several years, Dominion’s systems
were manufactured in the State of New York.
29
41. In June 2010, Dominion relocated its headquarters to Denver,
Colorado. Dominion continues to maintain an office and significant operations in
New York to this day, and the State of New York remains Dominion’s longest-
standing and second most valuable customer (behind Georgia).
42. Today, Dominion’s business is organized as US Dominion, Inc. and its
two wholly owned subsidiaries, Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. and Dominion
Voting Systems Corporation.
43. Dominion contracts with state and local governments to provide its
voting systems and services in a majority of states across the country. Those
contracts typically have multi-year terms and range in value from tens of thousands
of dollars to over a hundred million dollars, depending on the jurisdiction and scope
of the contract. Given the nature of the U.S. election system and the voting services
industry, Dominion’s contracts have historically been long-term with high renewal
rates. As of the 2020 election, Dominion had contracts to provide voting machine
technology in 28 states including, for example, the more than 50 counties in New
York.
44. Dominion does not run elections—local election officials run them.
Dominion voting machines are used by election officials to accurately tabulate votes
from county-verified voters using a durable paper ballot controlled and secured by
those local election officials. In other words, what Dominion voting machines do is
30
count paper ballots, and in that process create a fully auditable paper trail that
allows for complete hand recounts to confirm and verify election results.
45. By objective measures, the performance of Dominion’s machines was
a huge success in the 2020 election because they accurately counted the votes in
literally thousands of different jurisdictions in challenging circumstances. Across the
jurisdictions using Dominion voting machines—in the midst of a pandemic—hand
audits conducted as part of the vote certification process repeatedly confirmed the
accuracy of the Dominion machine vote tallies. As President Trump’s own Attorney
General William Barr stated, Dominion’s machines were just “counting machine[s],
and they save everything that was counted. So you just reconcile the two. There had
been no discrepancy reported anywhere, and I’m still not aware of any
discrepancy.”80
Christopher Ruddy Founds Newsmax and

Transforms It Into a Trump-Supporting Cable Channel
46. Newsmax was founded in 1998 as a conservative news and opinion
website that offered an alternative to major conservative news sources like Fox
News.81 According to CEO Christopher Ruddy, “[b]ack then, there was no real
80
Jonathan D. Karl, Inside William Barr’s Breakup with Trump, The Atlantic (June 27, 2021),
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/06/william-barrs-trump-administration-
attorney-general/619298/.
81
Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, Rise of Newsmax Defies Media Trend, The Financial Times (Jan.
10, 2010, 20:35), https://archive.ph/20110217123246/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/780adad6-fe15-
11de-9340-00144feab49a.html; Isaac Chotiner, Why Newsmax Supports Trump’s False Voter-
31
competitor to Fox News, and I thought that there needed to be more diversity of
opinion on the right, which led me to start Newsmax.”82
47. Ruddy launched Newsmax’s own cable news channel in 2014.83
Ruddy’s goal was simple: “serving an audience of more than 80 million
disenfranchised Baby Boomers.”84 Ruddy hoped Newsmax TV would reach 50
million homes.85 After President Trump’s election in 2016, Newsmax pushed to
cater its programming to President Trump’s loyal supporters and vie for the attention
of President Trump himself.
48. In fact, Newsmax was one of the earliest consistent supporters of
President Trump, years before he ran for office.86 Ruddy himself is a long-time
friend of President Trump and has credited Newsmax for giving Donald Trump his
Fraud Claims, The New Yorker (Nov. 24, 2020), https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-

newsmax-supports-trumps-false-voter-fraud-claims.
82
A.J. Katz, 10 Things You Need to Know About Newsweek, the Surging Conservative News
Network, AdWeek (Nov. 23, 2020) https://www.adweek.com/convergent-tv/newsmax-
conservative-news-network-10-things-you-need-to-know/.
83
Id.
84
Hadas Gold, Newsmax to Launch Channel with DirecTV, Politico (May 29, 2014, 11:40 AM),
https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/05/newsmax-to-launch-channel-with-directv-
189395; see also Jeremy Barr, Newsmax Hopes Conservative Anger at Fox News and a Few Trump
Tweets Can Boost the Much Smaller Network, Wash. Post (Nov. 10, 2020, 3:36 PM),
https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2020/11/10/newsmax-fox-news-trump-tweets/.
85
Callum Borchers, Newsmax chief executive Chris Ruddy’s savvy play for the ear of President
Trump, Wash. Post (Feb. 21, 2017, 12:56 PM), https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
fix/wp/2017/02/21/newsmax-ceo-chris-ruddys-savvy-play-for-the-ear-of-president-trump/.
86
Rosie Gray, Newsmax and the Rise of Trump, The Atlantic (Mar. 10, 2017),
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/how-chris-ruddy-became-the-medias-
favorite-friend-of-trump/519168/.
32
“legitimacy” back in 2011.87 The two have remained close friends ever since.88
During the first few weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency, Ruddy spoke with the
President so frequently that he emerged as an “unofficial conduit from the official
inner sanctum of the presidency to the outside world.”89
The Run-Up to the 2020 Presidential Election:

Newsmax Courts Fox Viewers
49. Prior to the 2020 Presidential Election, President Trump would
occasionally criticize Fox for what he perceived as insufficient support, such as for
Fox polls showing him behind in the Presidential race or Fox airing an interview
with a Democrat. On January 28, 2020, President Trump tweeted, “So, what the hell
has happened to @FoxNews. Only I know! Chris Wallace and others should be on
Fake News CNN or MSDNC. How’s Shep Smith doing? Watch, this will be the
beginning of the end for Fox, just like the other two which are dying in the ratings.”90
87
Jeremy W. Peters, A Compass for Conservative Politics, N.Y. Times (July 10, 2011),
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/business/media/newsmax-a-compass-for-conservative-
politics.html.
88
Rosie Gray, Newsmax and the Rise of Trump, The Atlantic (Mar. 10, 2017),
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/how-chris-ruddy-became-the-medias-
favorite-friend-of-trump/519168/.
89
Id.
90
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Jan. 28, 2020, 10:44 AM), previously available
at https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1222183788924502017
[https://www.thetrumparchive.com].
33
50. “Shep Smith” refers to Shepard Smith, a former Fox anchor who left
the network in 2019 in the middle of his long-term contract after criticism from
Trump.
51. As the 2020 Presidential Election approached, President Trump
repeatedly asserted that either he would win, or the election would be stolen from
him via fraud. In President Trump’s own words: “the only way we’re gonna lose this
election is if the election is rigged”91 and there “is massive fraud.”92
52. President Trump also drew a line in the sand: if he lost, his supporters
must either agree with him that the election was rigged or else face the consequences.
For example, President Trump would later fire Christopher Krebs, whom he had
appointed as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
(“CISA”) in charge of overseeing online security for the election, when Krebs dared
to rebut President Trump’s claims of fraud in the 2020 election.93 Later, Trump
Campaign attorney Joe DiGenova stated that Krebs “should be drawn and quartered.
91
Morgan Chalfant, Trump: “The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is
rigged”, The Hill (Aug. 17, 2020, 7:22 PM),
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/512424-trump-the-only-way-we-are-going-to-lose-
this-election-is-if-the.
92
The Hill, Trump: “The only way we can lose in my opinion is massive fraud”, YouTube (Oct.
26, 2020), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt6nCZRKChE.
93
Christopher Krebs, Opinion: Trump fired me for saying this, but I’ll say it again: The election
wasn’t rigged, Wash. Post (Dec. 1, 2020, 5:23 PM),
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/christopher-krebs-trump-election-wasnt-
hacked/2020/12/01/88da94a0-340f-11eb-8d38-6aea1adb3839_story.html.
34
Taken out at dawn and shot.”94 Trump also raised firing Attorney General William
Barr in a December 12, 2020 meeting,95 just days after Barr publicly announced that
the Department of Justice had found “no voter fraud that could overturn election.”96
Three days after that meeting, Barr resigned.97 Other Republicans and Trump
supporters like Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger and Georgia Governor
Kemp who dared to defy Trump and acknowledge the true reality—that President
Trump lost the 2020 election fair and square—likewise felt Trump’s public wrath.98
53. At the same time that President Trump was laying the groundwork for
a preconceived “fraud” narrative to excuse an election loss, news organizations—
including Newsmax—widely reported that election officials were expecting record-
shattering mail-in voting because of concerns over the ongoing coronavirus
94
Jim Acosta et al., Trump attorney issues call for violence against truth-telling former election
cybersecurity official, CNN (Dec. 1, 2020), https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/30/politics/joe-
digenova-attorney-trump-campaign-chris-krebs-violence/index.html.
95
Kevin Liptak & Jamie Gangel, Trump raised firing Barr in White House meeting on Friday,
CNN (Dec. 12, 2020, 6:57 PM), https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/12/politics/william-barr-donald-
trump-white-house-meeting/index.html
96
Anthony Zurcher, US attorney general finds ‘no voter fraud that could overturn election’, BBC
News (Dec. 2, 2020), https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55153366.
97
Noah Feldman, Bill Barr Quit. What Finally Spooked Him?, Bloomberg (Dec. 15, 2020, 5:00
AM), https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-12-15/william-barr-has-resigned-what-
finally-spooked-him.
98
Amara Walker, Family of Georgia’s Secretary of State Was Still Getting Death Threats Months
After Election, Report Says, CNN (June 11, 2021, 8:46 PM),
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/11/politics/georgia-raffensperger-family-death-threats-
election/index.html; Jacob Knutson, Georgia Gov. Kemp Says Pro-Trump Conspiracy Theorists
Have Threatened His Family, Axios (Dec. 18, 2020), https://www.axios.com/georgia-gov-kemp-
trump-death-threats-19be75f5-0b03-417f-b55a-0a72ec9ac193.html.
35
pandemic. News organizations—again including Newsmax—also reported that this
mail-in voting was widely expected to be much more heavily weighted in favor of
Democrats than the overall electorate, in significant part because prominent
Republicans, including President Trump, were consistently encouraging supporters
to avoid voting by mail and instead vote in person on Election Day.
54. In other words, well before any false claim that Dominion machines
had switched votes, Newsmax predicted and understood precisely what would
actually happen during the first week of November: early vote tallies would lean in
favor of then-President Trump, whereas later vote tallies would favor now-President
Joe Biden. However, Newsmax would flip the script on that reality to push its
preconceived narrative that Biden’s predicted comeback was the result of Dominion
rigging the election.
55. Newsmax’s pre-election stories reflect this understanding, adopting
Trump’s predictions of fraud even before the election, priming its viewers with the
pre-conceived narrative that Trump’s prospective loss could only occur if voting
fraud occurred. On October 14, 2020, Newsmax hosted President Trump himself on
Greg Kelly Reports.99 Newsmax, through its on-air host Greg Kelly, asked President
99
Interview: Greg Kelly Interviews Donald Trump on Newsmax’s Greg Kelly Reports – October
14, 2020, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPtv1APuhbU (last visited Aug. 5,
2021).
36
Trump his plans to combat election fraud in the aftermath of November 3. In
response, President Trump claimed the election was already “a rigged deal.”
56. As the election neared, Newsmax moved to capitalize on the perception
that Fox was insufficiently supportive of President Trump. For example, Newsmax
criticized Fox News host Chris Wallace’s moderating of the first presidential debate
in September 2020, reporting that the Fox host “let Biden get off easy” while he
“badgered” and “debated” President Trump.100 In late October 2020, a
Newsmax.com article declared: “Trump Rips ‘Fake’ Fox News Polls Indicating He's
Trailing Biden.”101
57. On Election Day, Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy set the stage for
Newsmax to become the landing spot for Trump supporters who were dissatisfied
with the election results and with Fox. Ruddy made the assertion that Fox might bear
responsibility for a Trump loss. In an interview with talk show host Michael Berry,
Ruddy said, “I am shocked about what Fox News has done. . . . I think if Trump
loses and it’s a close election, blame Chris Wallace and Fox News.”102
100
Marisa Herman, Conservatives Hit Fox News’ Chris Wallace: He Helped Biden, Newsmax
(Sept. 30, 2020, 11:33 AM), https://www.newsmax.com/politics/chris-wallace-debate-fox-news-
moderator/2020/09/30/id/989617/.
101
Marisa Herman, Trump Rips ‘Fake’ Fox News Polls Indicating He’s Trailing Biden, Newsmax
(Oct. 22, 2020, 4:17 PM), https://www.newsmax.com/us/Trump-Biden-FoxNews-
polls/2020/10/22/id/993327/.
102
Lindsey Ellefson, Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy Says Fox News Is to Blame if Trump Loses
(Audio), The Wrap (Nov. 3, 2020, 6:26 PM), https://www.thewrap.com/chris-ruddy-trump-fox/.
37
58. That night, while other news networks (including Fox’s Decision Desk)
waited for more votes to be counted before calling the state of Florida, Newsmax
called Florida for President Trump early in the evening. Florida was correctly called
for President Trump soon thereafter by other networks, but the White House noticed
that Newsmax was first. In response, special assistant to President Trump Andrew
Giuliani, who is Rudolph Giuliani’s son, appeared on Newsmax from the White
House lawn, boasting: “We have Newsmax on every single TV at the White
House.”103 Newsmax was quick to publish that story on its website and to brag about
it across social media platforms.104 Newsmax tweeted: “‘We have Newsmax on
every single TV at the White House’ @AndrewHGiuliani on other networks refusal
to call states despite the ‘empirical data.’” 105
103
Jason Devaney, Newsweek: Angry Fox News Viewers Turned to Newsmax Election Night,
Newsmax (Nov. 4, 2020, 11:24 PM), https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/fox-news-
conservatives-arizona-florida/2020/11/04/id/995313/.
104
Id.
105
Newsmax (@newsmax), Twitter (Nov. 3, 2020, 10:46 PM),
https://twitter.com/newsmax/status/1323849128938557440.
38
59. Newsmax seized another opportunity to brag about and capitalize on its
burgeoning status as the favored network of President Trump and his loyalists
shortly thereafter when Fox News became the first major news network to project
that President Trump had lost the battleground state of Arizona.
60. President Trump was reportedly “fuming” when he learned that Fox
had called Arizona for Biden, and his camp was quick to turn against Fox. Almost
immediately after Fox’s Arizona call, President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner
called Fox founder and Chairman Rupert Murdoch to complain. Less than thirty
minutes after Fox had called Arizona, President Trump’s political advisor Jason
Miller attacked Fox on Twitter, writing: “@FoxNews is a complete outlier in calling
Arizona, and other media outlets should not follow suit. There are still 1M+ Election
39
Day votes out there waiting to be counted – we pushed our people to vote on Election
Day, but now Fox News is trying to invalidate their votes!”106
61. Republican National Committee spokesperson Liz Harrington similarly
attacked Fox on Twitter: “Call GA, NC, and TX, you HACKS! Retract AZ!”107
62. In the wake of the immediate backlash against Fox, Newsmax refused
to call Arizona. Instead, Newsmax “buoyed Trump supporters who were defiant
about the president’s loss,” leading President Trump and his allies to further embrace
Newsmax over Fox.108
106
Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC), Twitter (Nov. 3, 2020, 11:47 PM),
https://twitter.com/JasonMillerinDC/status/1323849305917186050.
107
Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA), Twitter (Nov. 3, 2020, 11:52 PM),
https://twitter.com/realLizUSA/status/1323850485699432450.
108
Kevin Roose, Newsmax courts Fox News viewers with election denialism., N.Y. Times (Nov.
12, 2020, 8:56 PM), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/12/technology/newsmax-fox-news-
trump.html.
40
63. And it worked. As just one example, a couple who were “loyal viewers
of Fox News who watched the channel religiously for almost 20 years” “decided to
stop watching Fox News forever and look for an alternative” the morning after the
election.109 They heard about “the conservative upstart Newsmax during a pro-
Trump rally” and decided to make the switch.110 The couple’s story was just one of
many in “a quantifiable shift in the number of people who watch Newsmax,” which
saw a “dramatic uptick in viewers in the weeks since the election by capitalizing on
conservative frustration with Fox.”111
64. All told, Newsmax’s ratings spiked on Election Night. Over 3 million
viewers tuned in to the network on November 3, and Newsmax TV boasted its
highest ratings ever in the week following the election.112 On Election Night, singer
Travis Tritt tweeted:
109
Jeremy Barr, Why these Fox News loyalists have changed the channel to Newsmax, Wash. Post
(Dec. 27, 2020, 8:47 AM), https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2020/12/27/fox-news-
viewers-switch-to-newsmax/.
110
Id.
111
Id.
112
Brian Stelter, Newsmax TV scores a ratings win over Fox News for the first time ever, CNN
(Dec. 8, 2020, 6:53 PM), https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/08/media/newsmax-fox-news-
ratings/index.html..
41
113
65. Tritt’s tweet was liked over 43,000 times. 114
66. Actress Alana Stewart likewise tweeted:
115
67. Stewart’s tweet received over 3,000 likes.116
68. This changed media dynamic—that Fox was losing viewers and that its
rivals were trying to capitalize—was evident immediately. The morning after the
election, Newsweek reported: “Conservatives and the Trump administration have
railed against Fox News after the network called Arizona for Joe Biden.”117
113
Travis Tritt (@Travistritt), Twitter (Nov. 3, 2020, 9:38 PM),
https://twitter.com/Travistritt/status/1323862098926067712.
114
Id.
115
Alana Stewart (@AlanaKStewart), Twitter (Nov. 3, 2020, 10:18 PM),
https://twitter.com/AlanaKStewart/status/1323872198499598337.
116
Id.
117
Emma Nolan, Conservatives Turn Against Fox News Over Election Coverage, Change Channel
to Newsmax, Newsweek (Nov. 4, 2020, 3:55 AM), https://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-arizona-
biden-filpped-newsmark-trump-1544688.
42
Newsmax itself picked up the headline: “Angry Fox News Viewers Turned to
Newsmax Election Night.”118
November 5-7, 2020:

Independent Evidence Confirms an Accurate Count
Even as False Claims of Election Fraud Begin to Emerge
69. While Newsmax refused to admit that Trump would likely lose the
election and benefited from its conscious decision to reject the truth, false (though
vague) claims of election fraud began to emerge. At this early point, these claims
did not yet expressly connect Dominion to the false allegations.
70. Meanwhile, Newsmax itself acknowledged at this early point that
widespread fraud had not occurred. As early as November 5, Newsmax host Sean
Spicer, President Trump’s former press secretary and communications director,
admitted he had not “seen any evidence of widespread fraud.”119
71. Consistent with Spicer’s comment, the Wall Street Journal likewise
reported that same day about the “misinformation about vote counting” that was
“coming from prominent public figures with massive followings” and the “wild
118
Jason Devaney, Newsweek: Angry Fox New Viewers Turned to Newsmax Election Night,
Newsmax (Nov. 4, 2020, 11:24 PM), https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/fox-news-
conservatives-arizona-florida/2020/11/04/id/995313/.
119
Brian Trusdell, Spicer Hasn’t ‘Seen Evidence’ of Widespread Election Fraud, Newsmax (Nov.
5, 2020, 7:22 PM), https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/spicer-trump-fraud-
election/2020/11/05/id/995660/.
43
allegations” that “the election is being stolen.”120 These false conspiracy theories led
Facebook “to limit the spread of false and possibly dangerous content,” taking down
the “Stop the Steal” group that had amassed hundreds of thousands of members
around false claims of election fraud.121 The article also noted that CISA “tweeted
earlier Thursday about the robust safeguards in place to ensure a fair and accurate
election.”122
72. Even the Trump Administration made clear early on that no election
fraud took place. That same day of November 5, CISA posted a fact check in its
“Election Security Rumor vs. Reality” section to debunk the “rumor” that a “bad
actor could change election results without detection.” Instead, CISA stated:
“Reality: Robust safeguards including canvassing and auditing procedures help
ensure the accuracy of official election results.”123
CISA then stated: “Get the Facts: The systems and processes used by election
officials to tabulate votes and certify official results are protected by various
120
Jeff Horwitz et al., Facebook Imposes Limits on Election Content, Bans ‘Stop the Steal’ Group,
Wall St. J. (Nov. 5, 2020, 10:26 PM), https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-takes-down-group-
organizing-protests-of-vote-counting-11604603908.
121
Id.
122
Id.
123
Election Sec. Rumor vs. Reality Post Election, U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Sec. Agency
(Nov. 5, 2020), https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol#rumor17.
44
safeguards that help ensure the accuracy of election results. These safeguards include
measures that help ensure tabulation systems function as intended, protect against
malicious software, and enable the identification and correction of any
irregularities.” And CISA then explained in detail that “[e]very state has voting
system safeguards to ensure each ballot cast in the election can be correctly counted”
and “[e]very state also has laws and processes to verify vote tallies before results are
officially certified,” including “robust chain-of-custody procedures, auditable logs,
and canvass processes. The vast majority of votes cast in this election will be cast
on paper ballots or using machines that produce a paper audit trail, which allow for
tabulation audits to be conducted from the paper record in the event any issues
emerge with the voting system software, audit logs, or tabulation.”124
73. State and local officials likewise released statements confirming that
the vote tallies were accurate and that the election was not rigged. For example, in
Antrim County, Michigan—a jurisdiction that used Dominion voting machines for
the election—officials identified an initial vote reporting error caused by a clerk’s
human error. Officials quickly confirmed that the reporting error was indeed human
and was not caused by Dominion voting machines, and that Dominion’s tabulation
124
Id.
45
of votes in Antrim County was in fact accurate right from the very first tabulation.125
On November 6, just days after the election, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn
Benson issued a statement in response to “false claims made by Republican National
Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel” that Dominion machines had
malfunctioned in Antrim County. In the original unofficial count, user error caused
a mistaken vote count in Antrim County that was quickly corrected and was not due
to the Dominion machines. Benson’s statement made that clear: “The erroneous
reporting of unofficial results from Antrim county was a result of accidental error on
the part of the Antrim County clerk. The equipment and software did not malfunction
and all ballots were properly tabulated. . . . Because the clerk did not update software,
even though the tabulators counted all the ballots correctly, those accurate results
were not combined properly when the clerk reported unofficial results. . . . The
software did not cause a misallocation of votes; it was a result of user human
error.”126
74. From there, public information continued to pour in confirming that the
vote counts were accurate, and thus any allegations against Dominion were based on
125
MICH. SENATE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE, REPORT ON THE NOVEMBER 2020 ELECTION IN
MICHIGAN, https://misenategopcdn.s3.us-east-
126
False claims from Ronna McDaniel have no merit, The Office of Sec’y of State of Mich. (Nov.
6, 2020), https://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,4670,7-127-93094-544676--,00.html.
46
lies and misinformation. On November 7, 2020, the Associated Press reported that
Dominion was not to blame for the human error in Antrim County, Michigan.
Rather, the Associated Press correctly reported that a “clerk’s error” led to the
reporting of unofficial voting results that favored Biden.127
75. Also on November 7, 2020, Chris Krebs, the CISA head nominated by
President Trump, urged Americans to stop spreading baseless claims that minor vote
counting issues indicated fraud. Krebs tweeted: “Seeing #disinfo that some isolated
voting day issues are tied to some nefarious election hacking and vote manipulation
operations. Don’t fall for it and think twice before sharing!”128
76. Newsmax, however, understood that its growing viewer base of Trump
loyalists wanted it to continue to propagate the storyline that the election had been
stolen. Trump had made the litmus test clear: either accept his narrative of election
fraud, or lose his long-sought support. So Newsmax stuck to its alternate reality that
Trump had not lost the election—at least not fairly.
77. On November 7, most networks—including Fox—projected that
President Trump lost the 2020 Presidential Election. Notably, Newsmax refused to
127
Officials: Clerk error behind county results favoring Biden, Associated Press (Nov. 7, 2020),
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-technology-voting-michigan-
6beeef230376e75252d6eaa91db3f88f.
128
Ali Swenson, Posts falsify ties between election tech firm and Democrats, Associated Press
(Nov. 10, 2020), https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-us-news-media-michigan-
43bdaa186e3b8d9d897cae3bd0c6cdc0?utm_medium=APFactCheck&utm_campaign=SocialFlo
w&utm_source=Twitter.
47
do so, and in fact boasted that it remained “the only major news network to not call
the election,” attaching a video clip that described the election as “too close to
call”:129
78. The underlying reason for Newsmax’s decision was made clear by the
chyron on its tweet, “Fox News Faces Backlash from Viewers After Call for
129
Newsmax (@newsmax), Twitter (Nov. 7, 2020, 8:34 PM),
48
Biden,”130 and the next day Ruddy declared that Trump is “very disappointed in Fox
News” and “that Newsmax is now ‘a major player in cable news.’”131
79. The ratings reflected this new business reality. In the three days
following the election, “Newsmax TV led Fox Business and CNBC in all key day
parts. Newsmax is also seeing a terrific surge across its media properties, starting
with its cable and satellite news channel.” In that same article titled, “Newsmax
Again Beats Fox Business, CNBC in Ratings,” Newsmax likewise reported that
“Fox News viewers appear to be deserting the network in droves as they tune into
Newsmax TV.”132
November 8-10, 2020:

Fox Connects Dominion with the False Claims of Fraud Even as
Recounts and Hand Audits Further Confirm the Accuracy of the Count
80. Fox realized that in order to stem the tide and try to recover lost
viewers—including the most important viewer of all, President Trump himself—it
needed to go all in on the alternate reality that Trump lost because of massive
election fraud.
81. Recognizing the mortal threat to its viewership and profits, Fox acted.
The morning of November 8—the day after it had called the election for Joe Biden—
130
Id.
131
Kevin Roose, Newsmax courts Fox News viewers with election denialism, N.Y. Times (Nov.
trump.html.
132
Newsmax Again Beats Fox Business, CNBC in Ratings, Newsmax (Nov. 10, 2020, 11:15 AM),
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/nielsen-tv-ratings-fox-business/2020/11/10/id/996331/.
49
Fox began connecting Dominion with the false election fraud narrative. Fox started
by inviting Sidney Powell onto a broadcast of Sunday Morning Futures on Fox News
Channel, where Powell declared that there was “a massive and coordinated effort to
steal this election from We the People of the United States of America, to
delegitimize and destroy votes for Donald Trump, to manufacture votes for Joe
Biden,”133 and that “the Dominion software” was to blame. 134 According to Powell:
“That is where the fraud took place, where they were flipping votes in the computer
system or adding votes that did not exist.”135
82. Dominion became a convenient scapegoat precisely because 28 states
used Dominion machines—including many of the contested battlegrounds. And
even in jurisdictions that did not use Dominion machines—such as in Philadelphia—
Dominion became an easy target because its machines were used in so many other
highly contested jurisdictions—including in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin,
Arizona, and other parts of Pennsylvania. Casting Dominion as the perpetrator of the
fraud provided a way to explain why President Trump lost.
83. Even as Fox began to connect Dominion with the false claims of fraud,
the facts continued to demonstrate the accuracy of the Dominion machines. On
133
Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, Fox News (Nov. 8, 2020),
https://archive.org/details/FOXNEWSW_20201108_150000_Sunday_Morning_Fu
tures_With_Maria_Bartiromo/start/2501/end/2561..
134
Id.
135
Id.
50
November 9, 2020, Maricopa County, Arizona, completed a hand audit of paper
ballots as required by state law that showed a 100% match with the counts from the
Dominion machines used in Maricopa County. The count was overseen by
Republican, Libertarian, and Democratic officials.136 The results were widely
reported. Indeed, Newsmax.com itself reported these results and included a
statement by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich—a Republican—that “his
office conducted random audits and found no problems.”137
84. Also on November 9, 2020, Georgia Voting System Implementation
Manager Gabriel Sterling held a press briefing where he rebutted inaccurate claims
made about an update to machines on the eve of the election, confirming that
“nothing was done to the . . . system after [October 31],” when voter files were
updated as part of normal procedure. He explained that claims of voter fraud were
“nonsense. Don’t buy into these things. Find trusted sources.”138
85. On November 10, 2020, the New York Times reported: “Election
officials in dozens of states representing both political parties said that there was no
136
2020 General Election Hand Count Results Summary of Hand Count Audits – 2020 General
Election, Sec’y of State of Ariz. (Nov. 17, 2020, 4:54 PM), https://azsos.gov/election/2020-
general-election-hand-count-results.
137
Brian Trusdell, Arizona AG Confident Few, If Any, Election Anomalies, Newsmax (Nov. 11,
2020, 10:21 PM), https://www.newsmax.com/politics/brnovich-arizona-election-
anomalies/2020/11/11/id/996643/.
138
Georgia Voting System Implementation Manager Gabriel Sterling, Campaign 2020 News
Conference on Georgia Vote Count, C-SPAN (Nov. 9, 2020), https://www.c-
span.org/video/?477943-1/news-conference-georgia-vote-count.
51
evidence that fraud or other irregularities played a role in the outcome of the
presidential race . . .” The Times contacted the offices of the top election officials in
every state. Notably, all 29 Republican secretaries of state were surveyed, most
responding directly to the Times. None reported any major voting issues, refusing to
back up claims of a fraudulent election.139
86. Also on November 10, the Associated Press reported in a Fact Check:
“As poll workers tallied votes from the U.S. presidential election, many social media
users interpreted a clerk’s error in a small, Republican-leaning Michigan county as
vote-rigging because it wrongly favored Joe Biden before being fixed. A week later,
that misinterpreted mistake has snowballed into a deluge of false claims that
Democrats have deep ties to Dominion Voting Systems, the company that supplies
election equipment to Michigan and dozens of other states nationwide.”140
87. In that same “Fact Check,” the Associated Press again reported that
“Dominion was not to blame” for the initial user error in the Antrim County,
Michigan count, “according to the Michigan Department of State.” Antrim County
Clerk Sheryl Guy confirmed there was no malfunction of the Dominion machines in
139
Nick Corasaniti et al, The Times Called Officials in Every State: No Evidence of Voter Fraud,
N.Y. Times (Nov. 19, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/us/politics/voting-fraud.html.
140
Ali Swenson, Posts falsify ties between election tech firm and Democrats, Associated Press
(Nov. 10, 2020), https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-us-news-media-michigan-
43bdaa186e3b8d9d897cae3bd0c6cdc0?utm_medium=APFactCheck&utm_campaign=SocialFlo
w&utm_source=Twitter (emphasis added).
52
Antrim County: “There was no malice, no fraud here, just human error.” 141 In
response to a tweet by Newsmax’s White House correspondent Emerald Robinson
on November 9 asserting that “[o]nce the Trump campaign investigates Dominion
Voting Systems, the whole thing is going to fall apart,” a Twitter user sent Robinson
this Associated Press Fact Check debunking the false claims about Dominion
machines in Michigan.142
88. Also on November 10, 2020, Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab
declared: “Kansas did not experience any widespread, systematic issues with voter
fraud, intimidation, irregularities or voting problems . . . . We are very pleased with
how the election has gone up to this point.”143 Kansas used Dominion machines
during the 2020 election.
89. In short, in the days following the election, the public record was replete
with evidence confirming that the election was a success, that there was no fraud,
and that Dominion did not “rig” the election or “switch” any votes. This information
was echoed by state and local officials, confirmed by recounts and audits, reported
widely by the media, and even endorsed by the Trump Administration.
141
Id.
142
Sonja Pickles (@PicklesSonja), Twitter (Nov. 10, 2020, 4:29 PM),
https://twitter.com/PicklesSonja/status/1326321159651135488.
143
Jenny Jarvie & Seema Mehta, ‘Hoaxes and nonsense’: GOP election officials in Georgia reject
Trump’s unfounded fraud claims, L.A. Times (Nov. 9, 2020, 7:46 PM),
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-11-09/republican-officials-counter-false-claims-of-
election-fraud.
53
November 10-13, 2020:
Newsmax Joins the Race to the Bottom and
Zeroes in on Dominion as the Villain
90. For Fox, the false narrative about Dominion provided a lifeline. It
allowed Fox to reassert itself in its viewership battle with OAN and Newsmax. So
in the following days, Fox only increased the intensity and frequency of its
defamation campaign. Despite the highly publicized mountain of evidence proving
that the 2020 election was safe, secure, and accurately tabulated, including
specifically by Dominion machines, Fox persisted in forming and perpetuating its
alternate reality that Dominion rigged the election and stole it from Trump.
91. At this point, Newsmax faced a choice. It could engage in a battle of
lies with Fox—each attempting to outdo the other with outlandish and false
statements. Or it could tell the truth by rejecting these demonstrably false claims
about Dominion.
92. Newsmax chose to prioritize its profits over the truth. For Ruddy and
Newsmax, the facts did not matter. What mattered was feeding the audience what it
wanted—even if it was spreading false information. And the race to the bottom
began in earnest, dragging Dominion down with it.
93. Newsmax began with the false origin story about Dominion, namely
that Dominion was created in Venezuela by Hugo Chavez for the purpose of rigging
elections. And Newsmax’s alleged basis for that lie was that Dominion and its
54
competitor Smartmatic are the same. On November 10, 2020, Newsmax’s White
House Correspondent Emerald Robinson retweeted the false claim that Smartmatic,
described in the post as “synonymous with fraud for most Venezuelans,” is a
“subsidiary of Dominion.” Robinson zeroed in on Dominion, creating her own claim
that “All crooked roads lead to Dominion Voting Systems.”144
94. As Newsmax well knew and recklessly disregarded, the alleged
Venezuela-Chavez connection was based on the verifiably false claim that Dominion
is owned by (or, in Robinson’s tweet, owns) Smartmatic—a completely separate
company that competes against and neither owns nor is owned by Dominion, as was
readily apparent from information in the public domain since well before the
144
Emerald Robinson (@EmeraldRobinson), Twitter (Nov. 10, 2020, 10:37 AM),
https://twitter.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1326232608137752576.
55
November 3, 2020 election.145 Newsmax later admitted that it had no evidence that
Dominion and Smartmatic were the same company, but refused to retract the lies
and tell the truth.
95. Similarly, Newsmax and its on-air talent at a minimum recklessly
disregarded the facts—and indeed knew—that votes cast on Dominion machines
could be—and had already been, and continued to be—verified using paper ballots
that could be recounted by hand, rendering the fantasy of a vote-flipping machine
made for a deceased Venezuelan dictator inherently improbable and verifiably false.
Yet Newsmax actively sold to the American public these lies—that Dominion rigged
the 2020 election and stole it from Trump just like it stole elections in Venezuela for
Chavez, as it was designed to do—because these lies were paying off.
96. In the weeks after the election, Newsmax’s viewership began to climb
dramatically. “As the campaign season crested into election night and beyond, and
Trump refused to concede, more than 1 million people tuned into Greg Kelly’s
Newsmax show. That’s 10 times the audience the host drew earlier in the year.”146
“Other Newsmax hosts [saw] similarly steep ascents.”147 In the first full week after
145
Elections Security Is Our Top Priority Security-Focused Tech Company, Dominion Voting to
Implement New Verified Paper Ballot System, Ga. Sec’y of State (July 29, 2019),
https://sos.ga.gov/securevoting/ (last visited July 5, 2021).
146
David Folkenflik, Newsmax Rises On Wave of Resentment Toward Media – Especially Fox
News, NPR (Nov. 30, 2020, 12:11 PM), https://www.npr.org/2020/11/30/939030504/newsmax-
rises-on-wave-of-resentment-toward-media-especially-fox-news.
147
Id.
56
the election, Newsmax increased its viewership over four times from the week
before.148 By November 10, after showing viewers that Trump had tweeted
Newsmax clips at his followers, a Newsmax anchor declared, “The president seems
to be changing his tune on which network to go to.”149
97. Meanwhile, evidence debunking the lies about Dominion continued to
mount in the public record. On November 11, 2020, the New York Times published
an article titled, “No, Dominion voting machines did not delete Trump votes,” which
quoted an election-technology expert who explained that “[m]any of the claims
being asserted about Dominion and questionable voting technology is
misinformation at best and, in many cases, they’re outright disinformation.”150
98. On November 12, 2020, the Associated Press published another Fact
Check, which debunked the claim that Dominion “deleted” large numbers of votes
or “switched” them to count for President Joe Biden.151
148
Nathan Bomey, Could Fox News lose its grip on far-right conservative viewers to Newsmax,
OAN?, USA Today (Dec. 21, 2020, 4:01 AM),
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/12/21/fox-news-newsmax-oan-cable-news-donald-
trump-2020-election/3881624001/.
149
Jeremy Barr, Newsmax hopes conservative anger at Fox News and a few Trump tweets can
boost the much smaller network, Wash. Post (Nov. 10, 2020, 3:36 PM),
https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2020/11/10/newsmax-fox-news-trump-tweets/.
150
Jack Nicas, No, Dominion voting machines did not delete Trump votes, N.Y. Times (Nov. 11,
2020, 12:25 PM), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/technology/no-dominion-voting-
machines-did-not-delete-trump-votes.html.
151
Ali Swenson & Amanda Seitz, AP FACT CHECK: Trump tweets a tall tale of ‘deleted’ votes,
Associated Press (Nov. 12, 2020), https://www.apnews.com/article/fact-check-trump-tweets-tall-
tale-votes-13c104367924b8192b4fcecf334f7806.
57
99. Also on November 12, 2020, OAN—who by that time had joined
Newsmax and Fox in the race to the bottom to defame Dominion—falsely reported
that Dominion deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide based on an Edison
Research report.152 President Trump quickly retweeted the story,153 but just as
quickly, Edison Research President Larry Rosin exposed the segment as a lie:
“Edison Research created no such report and we are not aware of any voter fraud.”154
Fact checks quickly confirmed that the OAN story was false.155
100. That same day, the burgeoning narrative that Dominion was to blame
for the election results was again exposed as untrue when a joint statement from
federal, state, and local authorities published by CISA confirmed that there was “no
evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any
way compromised.”156 This widely-reported public announcement from the Trump
152
Alec Dent, Did Edison Research Find That Dominion Deleted Trump Votes or Switched Votes
to Biden?, The Dispatch (Nov. 12, 2020), https://factcheck.thedispatch.com/p/did-edison-
research-find-that-states.
153
Colby Hall, Trump Goes ALL Caps Promoting OAN’s Voter Fraud Conspiracy Debunked By
the NY Times and Others, Mediaite (Nov. 12, 2020, 12:19 PM),
https://www.mediaite.com/election-2020/trump-goes-all-caps-promoting-oans-voter-fraud-
conspiracy-debunked-by-the-ny-times-and-others/.
154
Alec Dent, Did Edison Research Find That Dominion Deleted Trump Votes or Switched Votes
to Biden?, The Dispatch (Nov. 12, 2020), https://factcheck.thedispatch.com/p/did-edison-
research-find-that-states.
155
Rem Reider, FactCheck Posts Trump Tweets Conspiracy Theory About Deleted Votes,
Factcheck.org (Nov. 13, 2020), https://www.factcheck.org/2020/11/trump-tweets-conspiracy-
theory-about-deleted-votes/.
156
U.S. CYBERSECURITY & INFRASTRUCTURE SEC. AGENCY, JOINT STATEMENT FROM ELECTIONS
INFRASTRUCTURE GOV’T COORDINATING COUNCIL & THE ELECTION INFRASTRUCTURE SECTOR
COORDINATING EXEC. COMM. (Nov. 12, 2020), https://www.cisa.gov/news/2020/11/12/joint-
statement-elections-infrastructure-government-coordinating-council-election.
58
Administration’s own experts on election security disproved the election-rigging lies
about Dominion.
101. Newsmax knew about the CISA announcement the same day it was
issued. Beyond it being widely reported in the press, Newsmax’s White House
Correspondent, Emerald Robinson, had been responding to and reposting then-CISA
Director Christopher Krebs’ “Rumor Control Update” posts debunking election
fraud claims on Twitter since November 6.
102. On November 12, the New York Times published a story entitled
“Newsmax courts Fox News viewers with election denialism,” which quoted
Newsmax CEO Ruddy.157 The article noted that Newsmax TV “has promoted a
parade of conspiracy theories and false allegations of voter fraud.” Examining
Newsmax’s rise in viewership, the article declared that Newsmax’s “alternate-reality
strategy is working.”158
103. The next day, November 13, 2020, Chief Judge Timothy Kenny of the
Third Circuit Court in Wayne County, Michigan made clear that the attempts to
allege fraud in the election were “not credible.” Chief Judge Kenny rejected an
attempt by Trump allies to block the certification of the vote in Wayne County, in
157
Kevin Roose, Newsmax courts Fox News viewers with election denialism, N.Y. Times (Nov.
trump.html.
158
Id.
59
Constantino v. City of Detroit. Chief Judge Kenny rejected the plaintiffs’ claims of
election fraud and unequivocally concluded: “Plaintiffs’ interpretation of events is
incorrect and not credible.”159
104. But by then, Newsmax and its counterparts Fox and OAN had fully
settled on Dominion as the scapegoat in the alternate reality that the 2020 election
was stolen from Trump. On November 12, Fox broadcast defamatory statements
about Dominion again. The spiral of lies was now gathering speed.
105. And the next day, on November 13, 2020, Newsmax host Benny
Johnson joined the burgeoning narrative against Dominion by tweeting: “Ban mail-
voting and Dominion voting machines and pass mandatory voter ID, NOW.”160 This
tweet was liked by almost 19,000 Twitter users and shared over 3,000 times. 161
159
Opinion & Order, at 7, Costantino v. City of Detroit, No. 20-014780-AQ (Mich. Ct. App., 3d
Cir.), available at http://www.kylemooreit.com/leb/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/11-13-20-
Costantino-Opinion-searchable.pdf.
160
Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson), Twitter (Nov. 13, 2020, 4:05 PM),
https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1327402235903533058.
161
Id.
60
106. Not to be outdone, Newsmax host Michelle Malkin also took to Twitter
to endorse and spread false assertions about Dominion, falsely suggesting that
Dominion was somehow connected with Antifa: “Joe Oltmann (now banned on
Twitter) exposes pro-Antifa, cop hatred-inciting rants of #EricCoomer, VP of
strategy/security of Dominion Voting Systems. ‘What if I told you he is a major
shareholder’ in Dominion & ‘owns patents associated with other voting systems?’
#MalkinLive.”162 As Newsmax later admitted, it never had evidence to substantiate
these false claims.
162
Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin), Twitter (Nov. 13, 2020, 10:43 AM),
https://twitter.com/michellemalkin/status/1327321119095832576.
61
November 15-16, 2020:
Newsmax Pits Democracy Against Dominion—
Falsely Branding Dominion as Synonymous with Election Fraud
Even as the Evidence Continues to Show Otherwise
107. By mid-November, even more evidence debunking these lies continued
to pour in. For example, on November 15, 2020, the Associated Press published a
report debunking the false claim that election servers connected to Dominion were
seized in Germany.163
108. Then, on November 16, 2020, fifty-nine specialists in election security
publicly and forcefully rebutted the lies about Dominion, explaining that “no
credible evidence has been put forth that supports a conclusion that the 2020 election
outcome in any state has been altered through technical compromise.”164 “Anyone
asserting that a U.S. election was ‘rigged’ is making an extraordinary claim, one that
must be supported by persuasive and verifiable evidence . . . .We are aware of
alarming assertions being made that the 2020 election was ‘rigged’ by exploiting
technical vulnerabilities. However, in every case of which we are aware, these
claims either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.”165
163
Jude Joffe-Block, False reports claim election servers were seized in Germany, Associated
Press (Nov. 15, 2020), https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-9754011363.
164
Nicole Perlroth, Election Security Experts Contradict Trump’s Voting Claims, N.Y. Times
(Nov. 16, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/16/business/election-security-letter-
trump.html.
165
Tony Adams et al., Scientists say no credible evidence of computer fraud in the 2020 election
outcome, but policymakers must work with experts to improve confidence, josephhall.org (Nov.
62
109. Newsmax knew about these statements because they were widely
reported on and publicized, and because its own White House Correspondent
Emerald Robinson was regularly responding to then-CISA director Chris Krebs’
tweets debunking false election fraud claims.166 For example, Chris Krebs posted a
link to these statements to his Twitter account on November 12167 and 17.168
Robinson tweeted directly in response to Krebs (along with another user who
accused Robinson of spreading false claims about Dominion).169 Newsmax knew
about CISA’s statement debunking the election fraud claims and about the coalition
of federal and state officials who concluded that there was no evidence that any votes
were compromised and that the 2020 election was “the most secure in American
history.” Newsmax itself reported these findings in a story on its website on
November 17.170
110. Nevertheless, Newsmax pressed on with its alternate-reality strategy
and barrage of lies about Dominion. But now, it actually began to create and brand
16, 2020), https://josephhall.org/papers/Experts-Statement-on-the-US-2020-General-Election-

16NOV2020-1057.pdf.
166
Emerald Robinson (@EmeraldRobinson), Twitter (Nov. 6, 2020, 2:17 PM),
https://twitter.com/emeraldrobinson/status/1324838286356029453?lang=en.
167
Chris Krebs #Protect2020 (@CISAKrebs), Twitter (Nov. 12, 2020, 4:34 PM),
https://twitter.com/CISAKrebs/status/1327047087024984064.
168
Chris Krebs #Protect2020 (@CISAKrebs), Twitter (Nov. 17, 2020, 8:45 AM),
https://twitter.com/CISAKrebs/status/1328741106624901120.
169
Emerald Robinson (@EmeraldRobinson), Twitter (Nov. 17, 2020, 8:38 PM),
https://twitter.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1328920407496384512.
170
Trump Fires Head of DHS Election Security Agency, Newsmax (Nov. 17, 2020, 7:22 PM),
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/krebs-cybersecurity/2020/11/17/id/997523/.
63
an entire campaign selling its audience on the total fantasy that Dominion rigged the
election and stole it from Trump, starting with its segment on its primetime show
Greg Kelly Reports titled, “Democracy or Dominion.”
111. In its November 16, 2020 “Democracy or Dominion” segment,
Newsmax and Kelly rebroadcast and endorsed Sidney Powell’s false statements
about Dominion after they had already aired on Fox. This segment is still available
on Newsmax’s YouTube channel and has over 770,000 views just on that site alone.
After celebrating that “the truth is finally told” and “the evidence is slowly
emerging” in introducing a cavalcade of falsehoods, Kelly played a Sidney Powell
interview in which Powell claimed that Dominion’s voting software was designed
to shift millions of votes from President Trump to Biden:
President Trump won by not just hundreds of thousands of votes

but by millions of votes that were shifted by the software that
was designed expressly for that purpose. . . . It was exported
internationally for profit by the people that are behind
64
Smartmatic and Dominion. They did this on purpose. It was
calculated. They’ve done it before. We have evidence from 2016
in California. We have so much evidence I feel like it’s coming
in through a fire hose.171
112. By this point, Kelly and Newsmax knew or recklessly disregarded the
facts debunking this manufactured narrative, including numerous audits in swing
states verifying the results and the unequivocal statements by Trump appointee Chris
Krebs, CISA, and 59 independent election experts. Nonetheless, Kelly cut into
Powell’s interview to give an unwavering endorsement of her claims: “I believe her,
and I don't believe the critics and the naysayers.”172 Instead, Kelly claimed that,
through Powell, “the truth is finally told.” But as Kelly and Newsmax well knew,
their claims were exactly backwards. The truth had been widely reported for weeks,
and the proponents of the truth (including Trump’s own allies) were only “critics
and naysayers” in Newsmax’s alternate reality—where pigs can fly and up is down.
Newsmax rebroadcast Powell’s false claims as truth, including Powell’s claim she
had “so much evidence” of the false Dominion allegations that “it’s coming in
171
Newsmax TV, They Need to Get a Grip | Greg Kelly, YouTube (Nov. 16, 2020),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ5K3TMTNg0; Newsmax, They Need to Get a Grip | Greg
Kelly, Facebook (Nov. 16, 2020),
https://www.facebook.com/newsmax/videos/491524035097426; Newsmax (@newsmax), Twitter
(Nov. 16, 2020, 5:37 PM), https://twitter.com/newsmax/status/1328512611307171840; Greg
Kelly Reports, Newsmax (Nov. 16, 2020),
https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/18e23dd5-e9f9-414d-8852-
334933661efd?token=77d8b679-c7d2-4315-9468-5a13188bd472 (Ex. 12).
172
Greg Kelly Reports, Newsmax (Nov. 16, 2020),
334933661efd?token=77d8b679-c7d2-4315-9468-5a13188bd472 (Ex. 12).
65
through a fire hose.”173 Of course, Powell would never produce any evidence
proving her claims.
113. Yet despite Newsmax’s knowledge of the truth, Newsmax still aired
Powell’s remarks again later the same day, this time alongside additional remarks
from Rudolph Giuliani, amplifying their inherently improbable and verifiably false
claims that Dominion shifted millions of Trump votes to Biden and its software was
“designed” to rig elections.174
114. Minutes later in the same segment, Newsmax’s on-air anchor Emma
Rechenberg, host of National Report on Newsmax, aired Powell’s statements again
before asking Joe DiGenova to weigh in:
DiGenova: Well the bottom line about Dominion is that it is a

suspect company. It’s used in twenty-seven states in the United
States and there's a reason it isn’t used in the other twenty th[ree].
They're smarter. It has an origin in Venezuela with friends of
Hugo Chavez. The company that runs it now has the counting
done overseas in Germany and Barcelona.175
DiGenova’s statements about Dominion were all false.
173
Id.
174
Newsmax, President Trump Continues to Not Concede | Report, Facebook (Nov. 16, 2020),
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1753178618164935; Newsmax (@newsmax), Instagram
(Nov. 16, 2020), https://www.instagram.com/p/CHqnhfnHVk3/.
175
Newsmax, President Trump Continues to Not Concede / Report, Facebook (Nov. 16, 2020),
(Nov. 16, 2020), https://www.instagram.com/p/CHqnhfnHVk3/; National Report, Newsmax
(Nov. 16, 2020), https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/b59c14f5-5d99-49d7-8209-
c7da11b46ebb?token=1cfbe59c-bc7e-4386-9540-41671812f9bd (Ex. 14).
66
115. The next day, Newsmax again targeted Dominion when Newsmax
anchor Heather Childers interviewed Dick Morris. Childers tried to minimize
CISA’s November 12 statement that the election was secure by falsely stating that
Dominion was a member of CISA’s board of directors, a purposeful
mischaracterization of Dominion’s relationship with CISA.176 Childers then
encouraged Morris to elaborate on the false claims against Dominion. As prompted,
Morris falsely claimed that Dominion was owned by China’s communist party and
invented by Hugo Chavez’s supporters in Venezuela.
Morris: . . . also remember Dominion is a kind of a shell

company. The real owners, the real motivators of Dominion are
the Chinese communist party and two Chavez supporters in
Venezuela who shortly after Chavez seized power invented the
Dominion Voting System as a method of stealing elections in
Venezuela. And as a result they would take that in Venezuela,
Argentina, and a whole host of other countries. 177
As Newsmax was already well aware, none of these statements are true.
116. Newsmax has not only refused to retract these statements—it has since
rewarded Dick Morris with his own regular show, Dick Morris Democracy.178
176
American Agenda, Newsmax (Nov. 17, 2020)
https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/a65f03d0-8b0f-4768-8d61-
12aaff4e6051?token=77d8b679-c7d2-4315-9468-5a13188bd472 (Ex. 15).
177
Id.
178
67
November 17-18, 2020:
Dominion Contacts Newsmax to Set the Record Straight,
But Newsmax Doubles Down
117. The morning of November 17, Newsmax engaged a new character in
its fictional narrative about Dominion: Patrick Byrne. Newsmax was the very first
of the television networks to broadcast Byrne—a fact that Byrne celebrated. To this
day, the title of Byrne’s post promoting his Newsmax interview states: “NewsmaxTV
Breaks Cone of Silence, Millions Hear Story There First.”179 He added in his
introduction to the video, “The Cone of Silence was smashed today by NewsmaxTV.
That itself will be a source of discuss [sic] sometime in the future. In the meantime,
enjoy. . . . Let the record show that numerous other journalists have had this story. .
. . None would run with the story.”180 Newsmax, however, had no such compunction.
118. On the National Report with Emma Rechenberg, Byrne claimed that he
was funding “cyber security experts” who had proven that Dominion machines were
hacked in the 2018 election in Dallas, Texas, and that same team had “data” proving
that Dominion hacked “five counties” that “flipped” the electoral college from
Trump to Biden181—false claims that Byrne elsewhere described as being the “last
act” in the same purported long-running “deep state” conspiracy that he said had
179
National Report, Newsmax (Nov. 17, 2020),
https://www.deepcapture.com/2020/11/newsmaxtv-breaks-cone-of-silence-millions-hear-story-
there-first/ (Ex. 16).
180
Id.
181
Id.
68
earlier involved him facilitating an $18 million bribe to Hillary Clinton. 182 (Byrne
had gone public with absurd “deep state” conspiracy theories long before Newsmax
invited him to peddle his Dominion lies on its air.) But among the huge problems
with Byrne’s November 17 rant on Newsmax: it was public knowledge that
Dominion machines were not used in Dallas or anywhere else in Texas during the
2018 election. Nonetheless, Newsmax added Byrne’s false statements to its alternate
reality despite knowing their falsity or at a minimum recklessly disregarding it.
Byrne’s November 17 appearance is today notably absent from Newsmax’s website,
and Newsmax still has provided no explanation, retraction, or apology.
119. To combat this and the many other false narratives about Dominion that
Newsmax and others created and perpetuated, Dominion began circulating a regular
email titled “SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: FACTS & RUMORS.” The
emails were complete with links to independent sources disproving the false claims
being made about the company. Dominion also maintained a page on its public
website with the same information, from November 11, 2020 onwards.
120. On November 17, 2020 at 3:10 P.M. Eastern, Dominion sent its first
“SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT” email to Newsmax’s booking producer,
182
Patrick Byrne, The Hillary Clinton Bribery-&-Blackmail & Maria Butina Intoxicate-Rape-
&Murder Deep State Stings Finale, Deep Capture (Oct. 6, 2020),
69
Alicia Hesse. Among other responsibilities, Hesse is involved with soliciting guests
to speak on Newsmax TV—including on Greg Kelly’s show. Upon information and
belief, Hesse shared the contents of the emails she received from Dominion with the
hosts and other producers for the shows she books. The November 17, 2020 email
included the following information:
 CISA’s November 12 statement that there was “no evidence that any
voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way
compromised”;183
 That “Dominion is not, and has never been, owned by Smartmatic,” with
detailed facts, and that Dominion has “no ownership relationships” with
Smartmatic nor “any ties to Venezuela”;
 That “[v]ote deletion/switching assertions are completely false,” along

with specific factual information why;
 That “[t]here were no Dominion software glitches and ballots were

accurately tabulated,” and “[t]he results are also 100% auditable,” along
with explanations and facts;
 That “[n]o unauthorized or last-minute software updates occurred”;
 A link to the Michigan Secretary of State’s website “which debunks false

or erroneous claims about voting in Detroit, as well as a user-error incident
in Antrim County”;
 A link to the Georgia Secretary of State’s website with the statement from
Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger that “every legal vote
was cast and accurately counted” in Georgia;
183
Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, Joint Statement From Elections Infrastructure
Government Coordinating Council & The Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive
Committees (Nov. 12, 2020), https://www.cisa.gov/news/2020/11/12/joint-statement-elections-
infrastructuregovernment-coordinating-council-election.
70
 That “Assertions of voter fraud conspiracies are 100% false” along with
links to the EAC and CISA websites noting that all U.S. voting systems,
including Dominion’s, “must provide assurance that they work accurately
and reliably” under EAC “and state certification and testing
requirements.”184
121. Dominion received no reply from Newsmax in response to this email.
122. That same day, Newsmax and Greg Kelly hosted Sidney Powell on
Greg Kelly Reports to spread bombshell lies about Dominion. Powell performed as
expected. In particular, Powell claimed to have “evidence” of “the guy who
founded” Dominion admitting “he can change a million votes, no problem at all”:
Powell: And we know Dominion and has a long history of

rigging elections. That’s what it was created to do to begin with.
…
And worse than that, it had a backdoor so it could be manipulated

by anyone who could access it through that backdoor and that
was a deliberate feature. The affidavit of the young military
officer we provided yesterday to the public explains how it was
created for that very purpose so Maduro, I mean so Hugo
Chávez, would never lose another election and he did not after
that software was created. He won every single election and then
they exported to Argentina and other countries in South America
and then they brought it here. . . .
We can -- got the evidence from the word -- the own mouths of
the guy who founded the company. I haven't even had a chance
to get that out to the public yet, but they admit -- the founder of
the company admits, he can change a million votes no problem
at all.
Kelly: The founder of Dominion admitted a long time ago,
184
SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: FACTS & RUMORS (Nov. 17, 2020) (Ex. 1).
71
recently to you, can -- tell us more, please.
Powell: Publicly. I will tweet out the video later and I’ll tag you
in it.
...
The only reason the glitches happened in the system was because
he was so -- he had so far many more votes than they had
calculated in advance, their algorithms wouldn’t perform the
functions they had originally performed or were set to perform.
They couldn’t make up the vote count he had gotten so many
hundreds of thousands more than they planned. So that’s when
they had to stop the counting and come up with a way to back fill
the votes or destroy votes for Trump while they fabricated votes
for Biden.185
123. Of course, Powell had no such evidence and never tweeted out the
video, which does not exist because Dominion’s founder never made any such
statement. Newsmax knew—or at minimum recklessly disregarded—the falsity of
these statements, and to this day flatly refuses to retract these demonstrably false
lies, despite Dominion’s numerous retraction demands.
124. Newsmax knew the truth not only from Dominion’s email, but also
from mounting evidence in the public record. While Newsmax continued to ignore
the truth, pressing forth with its lies despite knowledge of their falsity, public
officials continued to verify the accuracy of vote counts, adding to the mountain of
evidence debunking any theories of fraud in the election. On November 17, 2020,
185
Newsmax TV, Greg Kelly Reports, Major Developments in Key States | Sidney Powell,
YouTube (Nov. 17, 2020), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMDtOtGFrYg (Ex. 17).
72
the Republican chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors reported that
in Arizona, there was no evidence of voter fraud, “the evidence overwhelmingly
shows” the results were accurate, and the Dominion equipment “met mandatory
requirements during logic and accuracy testing before the Presidential Preference
Election, the Primary Election and the General Election.” The Chairman also stated
that “after each of these 2020 elections, the hand count audit showed the machines
generated an accurate count.”186 That same day, the Maricopa County Board of
Supervisors published a letter to voters about election results, confirming “[m]ore
than 2 million ballots were cast in Maricopa County and there is no evidence of
fraud or misconduct or malfunction.”187
125. Also, on November 17, 2020, the Associated Press released a report
debunking the claim that Smartmatic owns Dominion Voting Systems: “Both
Dominion and Smartmatic have released statements saying no ownership
relationship exists between the two competing firms. Indra Sistemas, a Spanish
186
Republican Maricopa County chairman says ‘no evidence of fraud or misconduct’ in
presidential election, Fox 61 (Nov. 17, 2020, 4:36 PM),
https://www.fox61.com/article/news/politics/elections/maricopa-county-chairman-says-no-
evidence-of-fraud-or-misconduct-in-presidential-election/75-6aba1803-850a-460f-8f86-
b185a41f4708.
187
Chairman of Maricopa Cnty. Bd. of Supervisors Clint Hickman, Letter to Maricopa County
Voters, Maricopa Cnty.
(Nov. 17, 2020), https://www.maricopa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/64676/PR69-11-17-20-
Letter-to-Voters.
73
company, told The Associated Press in an email it has never developed any project
or had a commercial, contractual or corporate relationship with either firm.” 188
126. The same day, The Wall Street Journal reported that “Dominion Voting
Systems Corp., a little-known voting-machine supplier that has come under criticism
from President Trump, was a linchpin in the 2020 election that federal and state
officials praise as being free from tampering.”189 The article continued: “A phalanx
of federal agencies, state officials across the country overseeing elections and
voting-equipment vendors said last week that ‘there’s no evidence that any voting
system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.’”190
127. The Editorial Board for The Wall Street Journal also published a piece
that same day that refuted false claims about Dominion and stated, “there’s no good
evidence of voting problems that would come close to” calling into question Biden’s
leads in the swing states.191 Dominion sent that article to Newsmax.
128. The next day, November 18, President Trump called Newsmax CEO
Ruddy. As Ruddy reported, President Trump “said that it’s just incredible, the
188
Ali Swenson, Smartmatic Does Not Own Dominion Voting Systems, Associated Press (Nov. 17,
2020), https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-afs:Content:9740535009.
189
Alexa Corse, Voting Machine Supplier Criticized by Trump in Spotlight on Election Integrity,
Wall St. J. (Nov. 17, 2020, 9:46 AM), https://www.wsj.com/articles/voting-machine-supplier-
criticized-by-trump-in-spotlight-on-election-integrity-
11605624361?mod=searchresults_pos17&page=2.
190
Id.
191
The Editorial Board, Rage Against the Voting Machine, Wall St. J. (Nov. 17, 2020, 6:33 PM),
https://www.wsj.com/articles/rage-against-the-voting-machine-11605656036.
74
ratings you’re getting, and everyone’s talking about it.”192 President Trump told
Ruddy to “keep up the good work.”193
129. In response, Ruddy tweeted in delight several times that day. First,
Ruddy tweeted: “Fox News ‘stabbed us in the back.’ Is Newsmax our new
alternative?”194
192
Michael M. Grynbaum & John Koblin, Newsmax, One a Right-Wing Also-Ran, Is Rising, and
Trump Approves, N.Y. Times (Nov. 22, 2020),
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/22/business/media/newsmax-trump-fox-news.html.
193
Id.
194
Christopher Ruddy (@ChrisRuddyNMX), Twitter (Nov. 18, 2020, 3:49 PM),
https://twitter.com/ChrisRuddyNMX/status/1329179915414073347.
75
130. Later that day, Ruddy tweeted: “Another call today from
@realDonaldTrump, he’s wowed by Newsmax TV’s ratings and big buzz. Says he’s
gaining in Michigan, more coming! Keep watching @newsmax: nws.mx/tv.”195
195
76
131. Newsmax also capitalized on the buzz on its website. In an article
Newsmax published on November 18, 2020, Greg Stinchfield bragged, “We’re
killing it here on Newsmax with a tactic they've never tried. It's called the truth, the
stone-cold truth, and once you get a taste of it, you will never tolerate being lied to
again.” Of course, Newsmax’s tactic was anything but the truth.196
132. Fox continued to sink to the challenge as well. The next night, in an
interview between Lou Dobbs and Sidney Powell on Fox Business, Dobbs himself
endorsed Powell’s statement that “Smartmatic owns Dominion,” concluded that the
election was “deeply, deeply, troubling,” and warned that “people [are] trying to
blind us to what is going on.”197
196
Trump-Friendly Newsmax Seeks to Cut into Fox News Viewership, Newsmax (Nov. 18, 2020
10:04 PM), https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/media-fox-
competition/2020/11/18/id/997732/.
197
Complaint, ¶ 179(h), U.S. Dominion Inc. et al. v. Fox News Network, LLC, No. N21C-03-257
(Del. Sup. Ct. Apr. 26, 2021).
77
November 19-21, 2020:
As the Evidence Debunking Newsmax’s Lies Piles Up,
Newsmax Ramps Up Its Disinformation Campaign
133. Spurred on by ratings and the praise of President Trump, and despite
knowing the truth, Newsmax continued its defamatory campaign against Dominion
the next day, November 19. Over the course of three segments, Newsmax’s Grant
Stinchfield combined Powell’s and Giuliani’s false statements about Dominion with
his own lie—that he and his team had independently uncovered the evidence that
Dominion rigged the 2020 election, describing the allegations against Dominion as
“what we here on Stinchfield have been warning about for the past few weeks.”198
Newsmax, and Stinchfield, already knew that these claims were debunked, or at the
very least recklessly disregarded the truth; they would admit they had no such
evidence several weeks later. Yet they took a step further than just repeating and
endorsing the defamatory claims. They affirmatively took ownership of the
fabricated claims in their own right, in order to sell this alternate reality to
Newsmax’s viewers.
134. Stinchfield introduced Powell by blithely brushing aside any contrary
reports that disproved her claims and falsely assuring viewers that Powell and
Giuliani had “tons of evidence,” including “sworn witness affidavits” that backed
198
Stinchfield, Powell Calls Out Election Hacking, Newsmax (Nov. 19, 2020),
https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/9060596d-35ef-4fff-b500-
fa56fa4f875f?token=eac1ac75-b0a8-4076-8613-ae72593523fd (Ex. 19).
78
up all of their claims. He went even further, telling his viewers that the (nonexistent)
evidence against Dominion was “damning” and that it supported what Newsmax
and his show had already been telling its viewers: that Dominion’s “software is
designed expressly to cheat,” committed “systematic widespread fraud” in the
election to change votes to Biden, and that Dominion “has ties to communist
Venezuela.”199
135. Stinchfield did not and could not have validated those claims, nor could
he have found that any evidence was “damning,” because there is no evidence and
are no affidavits that could reasonably be viewed as substantiation for Powell’s false
claims, particularly in light of all the actual evidence debunking the lies.
136. In the same segment, Stinchfield replayed a Sidney Powell press
conference, interrupting throughout to endorse her defamatory statements and to
assure his viewers that his “investigative unit” had been “uncovering” these
(already-debunked) claims for weeks:
So she says the algorithm was designed to crash, allowing these states to shut
down and usher in thousands of fake ballots for Biden. It all makes sense now
if this is true, right, and she says it proves all the research that our
investigative unit here on Stinchfield has been uncovering. . .200
199
Stinchfield, Digging into Fraud Allegations, Newsmax (Nov. 20, 2020),
https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/b3bb497c-180e-4971-8436-
ab8eae44f918?token=7a679127-0e9f-4efe-bd9f-931fe9d65dc7 (Ex. 20).
200
79
By claiming that the “research” of its own “investigative unit” had corroborated the
false claims promoted by Powell, Newsmax endorsed those false claims for its
viewers, actively working to convince the audience of this alternative reality.
Notably, Stinchfield did not describe for his Newsmax audience the supposed
“research that our investigative unit here on Stinchfield has been uncovering”—
because no such “research” could ever have corroborated Powell’s patently false
claims about Dominion.
137. In the clip, Newsmax republished Powell’s claim that Dominion’s
voting system was designed to switch votes from then-President Trump to Biden and
had systematically done so in the election, that Dominion had ties to Venezuela, and
that votes were being manipulated and counted by foreign actors. Again, Newsmax
was well aware that these claims were false. The Georgia vote audit had already
confirmed the Dominion voting systems’ accuracy.201 Indeed, Newsmax reported
the results of the Georgia hand count on its website the same day. 202 Newsmax was
also told directly that the claims about Dominion were false in the “SETTING THE
RECORD STRAIGHT” compendium it had received, and in countless other
201
Historic First Statewide Audit of Paper Ballots Upholds Result of Presidential Race, Ga. Sec’y
of State (Nov. 19, 2020),
https://sos.ga.gov/index.php/elections/historic_first_statewide_audit_of_paper_ballots_upholds_r
esult_of_presidential_race.
202
Biden Maintains His Lead Over Trump as Georgia Recount Ends, Newsmax (Nov. 19, 2020,
7:30 PM), https://www.newsmax.com/politics/GOV-NORTHAM-POL-
US/2020/11/19/id/997933/.
80
publicly available sources. The truth was clear: Dominion didn’t have ties to
Venezuela and its software hadn’t switched votes in the election.
138. The same day, Fox’s Tucker Carlson publicly called out Sidney Powell
for failing to produce any evidence to support the outlandish and incredible claims
she had been making about Dominion on Fox over the previous week.203 Despite his
invitation to Powell to appear on his show and present her evidence, “she never sent
[] any evidence, despite a lot of requests … not a page.” When he and his staff kept
pressing Powell to present evidence, “she got angry” and told them to stop contacting
her. So Carlson and his staff checked with others in and around the Trump campaign
and people in positions of authority, who said that Powell had “never given them
any evidence either.” Carlson concluded that Powell “never demonstrated that a
single actual vote was moved illegitimately by software from one candidate to
another. Not one.”204
139. Yet Newsmax continued to peddle these baseless lies about Dominion.
On November 19, 2020, Newsmax and Newsmax’s Chris Salcedo aired more lies
about Dominion on The Chris Salcedo Show. In the episode, Salcedo said:
“Stinchfield has been very good in the forefront of exploring the Dominion voting
203
Tucker Carlson, Opinion: Tucker Carlson: Time for Sidney Powell to show us her evidence,
Fox News (Nov. 19, 2020), https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-rudy-giuliani-
sidney-powell-election-fraud.
204
Id.
81
machines. Salcedo Show has been exploring and trying to sound the alarm bells
for months now, about how our votes are tabulated outside the country.” 205 Salcedo
then played a clip of Giuliani falsely claiming that “our votes are counted in
Germany and in Spain by a company owned by affiliates of Chavez and Maduro.”
Newsmax’s Stinchfield was quick to agree: “We saw, Chris that these votes had
gone through a server in Frankfurt, Germany.”206 Newsmax knew these lies were
false or at a minimum recklessly disregarded the truth, and yet chose to not only air
them, but to take credit for leading the charge in discovering and uncovering these
made-up claims.
140. Even more evidence debunking Newsmax’s lies came to light that same
day. On November 19, 2020, Georgia announced the results of its hand count of
100% of the paper ballots cast in Georgia’s election. As Georgia Secretary of State
Raffensperger announced, this audit “upheld and reaffirmed the original outcome
produced by the machine tally of votes cast. Due to the tight margin of the race and
the principles of risk-limiting audits, this audit was a full manual tally of all votes
cast. The audit confirmed that the original machine count accurately portrayed the
205
The Chris Salcedo Show, Changing Votes Using Dominion Software, Newsmax (Nov. 20,
2020), https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/cd83634c-80a4-420e-8712-
d86044d6a148?token=53eea26c-97c5-4908-b3b7-29d8443e3682 (Ex. 21).
206
Id.
82
winner of the election.”207 This hand recount verified the accuracy of the Dominion
machine counts and conclusively disproved the accusations against Dominion.
141. The next day, the Wall Street Journal once again reported that the
Dominion allegations were false and that the Georgia recount had confirmed the
accuracy of Dominion’s voting machines.208
142. Yet Newsmax kept going. On November 20, 2020, Newsmax brought
Sidney Powell back on air to the Howie Carr Show, where she claimed that
Dominion’s voting system had used an “algorithm” to switch ten million votes from
Trump to Biden. Powell also claimed to “have a lot of extremely solid evidence it's
beyond impressive and absolutely terrifying.” Yet Powell “couldn’t say for sure yet”
whether any states other than the battleground states had been impacted.209
Escalating her defamatory lies further, Powell claimed that “one of the high people
in Dominion voting systems went to Detroit to operate the system himself there that
night,” referring to the TCF convention center in downtown Detroit, on the night of
the presidential election, where the city of Detroit’s votes were being counted in
207
Historic First Statewide Audit Of Paper Ballots Upholds Result Of Presidential Race, Georgia
Secretary of State (Nov. 19, 2020) (last visited Aug. 5, 2021),
esult_of_presidential_race.
208
The Editorial Board, Georgia Certifies: Donald Trump Lost, Wall St. J. (Nov. 20, 2020, 6:42
PM), https://www.wsj.com/articles/georgia-certifies-donald-trump-lost-11605915757?page=2.
209
The Howie Carr Show, Howie Carr with Sidney Powell, Newsmax (Nov. 20, 2020),
https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/5ff309a8-afd5-4de3-81a0-
770224c312e6?token=56c376de-1f43-4102-99e3-567f6fb82962 (Ex. 22).
83
view of hundreds of election challengers.210 Powell also claimed to have evidence
that Eric Coomer, who at the time worked for Dominion, was on “a conference call
or something, a Zoom supposedly with the antifa and he said don't worry about
Trump, I’ve already made sure he’s going to lose the election.”211
143. Powell’s defamatory claims were wildly implausible and unsupported
by any evidence. Indeed, Newsmax knew these lies were false or at minimum
recklessly disregarded the truth. As Newsmax knew, because it had been sent this
report by Dominion already, the Michigan Secretary of State’s website had publicly
debunked any allegations about Dominion impacting the vote count in Detroit.212 It
also already knew that the results of the Georgia and Maricopa County hand recounts
had confirmed the same—that Dominion’s voting systems had accurately tabulated
the presidential election.213
144. How did Newsmax respond to the Georgia audit? By bringing on
Sidney Powell to promote an even more inherently improbable story that Dominion
210
Id.; see also Tresa Baldas et al, ‘Get to TCF’: What really happened inside Detroit’s ballot
counting center, Detroit Free Press (Nov. 6, 2020, 12:00 PM),
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2020/11/06/tcf-center-detroit-ballot-
counting/6173577002/.
211
The Howie Carr Show, Howie Carr with Sidney Powell, Newsmax (Nov. 20, 2020),
https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/5ff309a8-afd5-4de3-81a0-
770224c312e6?token=56c376de-1f43-4102-99e3-567f6fb82962 (Ex. 22).
212
213
Voters, Maricopa Cnty. (Nov. 17, 2020),
https://www.maricopa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/64676/PR69-11-17-20-Letter-to-Voters.
84
had bribed Georgia officials. On November 21, 2020, Newsmax invited Powell back
on air to present another series of lies, including that the Georgia certification was a
“total farce,” and Georgia’s Republican governor and Republican secretary of state
had received bribes from Dominion and were in on the “scam”:
Powell: . . . Georgia is probably going to be the first state I'm

going to blow up, and Mr. Kemp and the Secretary of State need
to go with it because they're in on the Dominion scam with their
last-minute purchase or award of a contract to Dominion of $100
million. The state Bureau of Investigations for Georgia ought to
be looking into financial benefits received by Mr. Kemp and the
Secretary of State's family about that time. Another benefit
Dominion was created to reward is what I would call election
insurance, that's why Hugo Chavez had it created in the first
place. . . .214
145. Governor Kemp and Secretary of State Raffensperger received death
threats as a result of Powell’s false claims.215 Just as before, Newsmax knew that
these statements were already proven false by election and cybersecurity experts, the
results of hand recounts across the country (including in Detroit), publicly available
sources, and every other source already sent to Newsmax by Dominion thus far.
Newsmax also knew that Powell was a facially unreliable source, yet Newsmax kept
214
Sidney Powell: It Will Be BIBLICAL, YouTube (Nov. 21, 2020),
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y68pEknYyCM?rel=0&start=0 (Ex. 23).
215
Amara Walker, Family of Georgia’s Secretary of State Was Still Getting Death Threats Months
After Election, Report Says, CNN (June 11, 2021, 8:46 PM),
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/11/politics/georgia-raffensperger-family-death-threats-
election/index.html; Jacob Knutson, Georgia Gov. Kemp Says Pro-Trump Conspiracy Theorists
Have Threatened His Family, Axios (Dec. 18, 2020), https://www.axios.com/georgia-gov-kemp-
trump-death-threats-19be75f5-0b03-417f-b55a-0a72ec9ac193.html.
85
inviting her back on air, each time with more fantastical and improbable
allegations—lies that Newsmax endorsed as part of the alternative reality it was
creating for its audience.
146. As November wore on, Newsmax’s disinformation campaign was
paying off. On November 23, 2020, Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy boasted that
ad revenues for Newsmax “are tripling in Q4” of 2020 “compared to last year,” and
Newsmax expected ad revenues “will double again by the end of Q1 2021.”216
Ruddy also said Newsmax was on a “hiring splurge” following the election.217
November 22-30, 2020:

Even After President Trump and Other Republicans
Disavow Powell’s Lies, Newsmax Barrels Forward
147. On November 22, 2020, the Trump Campaign itself disavowed
Sidney Powell by issuing the following statement: “Sidney Powell is practicing law
on her own. She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer
for the President in his personal capacity.”218
216
Network, AdWeek (Nov. 23, 2020), https://www.adweek.com/convergent-tv/newsmax-
217
Lisa Richwine & Helen Coster, Newsmax plans expansion to capitalize on Trump support,
anger at Fox News, Reuters (Dec. 10, 2020, 5:20 AM), https://www.reuters.com/article/media-
conservative/newsmax-plans-expansion-to-capitalize-on-trump-support-anger-at-fox-news-
idINKBN28K17S?edition-redirect=uk.
218
Maggie Haberman & Alan Feuer, Trump Team Disavows Lawyer Who Peddled Conspiracy
Theories on Voting, N.Y. Times, (Nov. 22, 2020)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/22/us/politics/sidney-powell-trump.html.
86
148. Other prominent Republicans acknowledged the obvious truth about
Powell and Giuliani, too. On November 22, during an interview on ABC News’s
This Week, Trump ally Chris Christie called out Powell and Giuliani—whose law
license was later suspended for making “knowing false and misleading factual
statements to support his claim that the presidential election was stolen from his
client [Donald Trump]”219—and stated: “The conduct of the President’s legal team
has been a national embarrassment. . . . If you’re unwilling to come forward and
present the evidence, it must mean the evidence doesn’t exist.”220
149. Even Republicans who once supported Powell’s and Giuliani’s lies
distanced themselves from the Dominion defamation campaign. Republican senators
called the White House, warning that Powell seemed “unhinged” and that the Trump
Campaign should distance itself from her.
150. Newsmax, however, kept on peddling the false Dominion conspiracy
theories to its viewers as fact. On November 23, 2020, Newsmax host Benny
Johnson stated on “The Benny Report” that Dominion employs “Trump-hating
219
0Giuliani%20(2021-00506)%20PC.pdf; https://apnews.com/article/rudy-giuliani-new-york-law-
license-suspended-c67f4504a22f8642d6096f29e3a5c51e (emphasis added).
220
Paul Kane & Felicia Sonmez, Chris Christie calls the conduct of Trump’s legal team a ‘national
embarrassment’, Wash. Post (Nov. 22, 2020, 10:11 PM),
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/republicans-christie-trump-concede/2020/11/22/05c28
0e6-2cda-11eb-bae0-50bb17126614_story.html.
87
Antifa members as security engineers,” its voting systems are used in Venezuela,
and the votes were counted off American soil.
Johnson: Finally, we get to Dominion Voting Systems. . . Their

voting systems are used in Venezuela and their votes are counted
off American soil, if that tells you anything.221
151. Then, on November 24, adding to the piles of evidence Newsmax had
already been sent and obviously knew based on its own online reporting, Dominion
sent Newsmax producer Alicia Hesse yet another email outlining the many
statements—with links—made by conservative leaders over the prior 24 hours
debunking the false claims about Dominion: former DHS Deputy Assistant
Secretary under George W. Bush, Paul Rosenzweig; former Assistant United States
Attorney for the Southern District of New York under Rudy Giuliani, Andrew
McCarthy; and Republican Ohio Senator and co-chair of Trump’s Ohio campaign,
Rob Portman.222
152. On November 25, CNN ran an article entitled, “Fox News staffers
thought Newsmax was a joke. But they’re not laughing anymore.”223 Based on
221
Newsmax TV, You Have Every Right to Be Suspicious | Benny Johnson, YouTube (Nov. 23,
2020), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j88gkKbjoo; Newsmax (@newsmax), Twitter (Nov.
21, 2020, 6:08 pm), https://twitter.com/newsmax/status/1330332248906866693; The Benny
Report, Newsmax (Nov. 23, 2020), https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/7bff6161-
b305-411e-9b6f-fd894a3e1002?token=37f52d99-127d-4b48-b8dc-e5e99babfaaa (Ex. 24).
222
SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: FACTS & RUMORS (Nov. 23, 2020) (Ex. 2).
223
Brian Stelter, Fox News staffers thought Newsmax was a joke. But they’re not laughing
anymore, CNN Business (Nov. 25, 2020, 5:15 PM), https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/25/media/fox-
news-newsmax/index.html.
88
reporting from within Fox, the article recognized Fox’s growing concern about
Newsmax, along with OAN, and some steps Fox was taking: “Fox News is taking
action to stave off newfound competition from Newsmax TV. Producers on some
Fox programs have been told to monitor Newsmax’s guest bookings and throw some
sand in Newsmax’s gears by encouraging guests who appear on both channels to
stop saying yes to the upstart.” As the article stated: “According to Fox sources,
producers were told to avoid some regular guests if they kept showing up on
Newsmax after being encouraged to stop. Management’s goal: to remind guests
who’s boss in the right-wing media world.” Fox “staffers also said that the
competitive dynamic is having an impact on some of Fox's programming choices.”
Fox was “paying close attention to the daily ratings spreadsheets that show
Newsmax’s performance alongside Fox News, Fox Business and other channels.”
And because of this competition to spread false conspiracy theories, “‘[o]ur audience
has absolutely been radicalized,’ one longtime on-air staffer at Fox said.”224 Proud
of having created this dangerous radicalizing “dynamic” (because it helped
Newsmax compete with Fox), not only did Newsmax tweet the article, but
Christopher Ruddy personally retweeted it out again.
224
Id.
89
225
153. On November 26, 2020, Dominion sent yet another email to Newsmax
producer Alicia Hesse with the same sets of facts she had been repeatedly sent in
earlier SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT emails, as well as even more facts
debunking claims that Dominion had rigged the election in Pennsylvania, including
that Dominion serves only 14 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, that Trump exceeded
his 2016 vote percentage in 11 of those 14 counties, that Trump won 12 of those 14
counties, and that “Dominion doesn’t operate in Philadelphia County, Allegheny
County, or other highly contested districts.”226
225
226
E-mail from Dominion, FACT SHEET: Dominion Voting Systems in Pennsylvania (Nov. 26,
2020) (Ex. 4).
90
154. Meanwhile, public officials continued to debunk Newsmax’s lies. On
November 29, 2020, Chris Krebs appeared on 60 Minutes and declared: “[Election]
Day was quiet. There was no indication or evidence that there was any evidence of
hacking or compromise of election systems on, before, or after November 3.”227
155. Yet Newsmax continued to promote its falsehoods about Dominion
across its platforms, despite knowing all of these facts. By late November,
Newsmax’s Ruddy had:
[E]merged as the most audacious media entrepreneur of the Trump election

fantasy. The chief executive of Newsmax and part of President Trump’s South
Florida social circle, Mr. Ruddy has capitalized on the anger of Mr. Trump’s
supporters at Fox News for delivering the unwelcome news, first in Arizona
and then nationally, that Mr. Trump had lost his re-election campaign. On
Newsmax, however, the fight is still on, the imaginary election-altering
Kraken is yet to be released, Mr. Trump is striving valiantly for four more
years and the ratings are incredible.228
156. In the “hallucinatory attempt to overturn the election, Mr. Ruddy saw
opportunity: Newsmax, available on cable in most American households and
streaming online, became the home of alternate reality.”229 Ruddy admitted as much:
227
Scott Pelley & Chris Krebs, Fired director of U.S. cyber agency Chris Krebs explains why he
says vote was “most secure in American history”, 60 Minutes (Nov. 29, 2020),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzBJJ1sxtEA.
228
Ben Smith, The King of Trump TV Thinks You’re Dumb Enough to Buy It, N.Y. Times (Nov.
29, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/29/business/media/newsmax-chris-ruddy-
trump.html.
229
Id.
91
“In this day and age, people want something that tends to affirm their views and
opinions.”230 So Newsmax continued to spread lies about Dominion.
December 1-13, 2020:

Undeterred, Newsmax Keeps Hosting Powell
to Spread Lies about Dominion
157. By December, even President Trump’s Department of Justice had
confirmed that no fraud took place. On December 1, 2020, Trump appointee and
then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr stated: “There’s been one assertion that
would be systemic fraud and that would be the claim that machines were
programmed essentially to skew the election results. And the DHS and DOJ have
looked into that, and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that.”231 Other
Trump advisors had privately admitted by mid-December that these theories
regarding Dominion rigging the election were “bat-shit insane.”232
158. Newsmax knew about Barr’s statement and the DHS and DOJ’s
findings, indeed it reported these facts on Newsmax.com the same day.233 But that
230
Id.
231
Michael Balsamo, Disputing Trump, Barr says no widespread election fraud, Associated Press
(Dec. 1, 2020), https://apnews.com/article/barr-no-widespread-election-fraud-
b1f1488796c9a98c4b1a9061a6c7f49d.
232
Emma Brown et al., The Making of a Myth, Wash. Post (May 9, 2021),
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2021/trump-election-fraud-texas-
businessman-ramsland-asog/.
233
Newsmax, AG Barr to AP: DOJ Has No Evidence of Fraud That Would Change Election
Outcome, Newsmax (Dec. 1, 2020, 2:41 PM), https://www.newsmax.com/politics/barr-election-
fraud/2020/12/01/id/999518/.
92
didn’t stop Newsmax from continuing to broadcast the false narrative about
Dominion.
159. Meanwhile, Dominion sent another fact sheet—this time focusing on
debunking claims that Dominion rigged the election in Georgia—to Newsmax
through its booking producer Alicia Hesse. The fact sheet further detailed the
independent audits, hand recounts, and other measures taken by Georgia’s
Republican administration that had verified that Dominion had accurately tabulated
votes in Georgia’s 2020 election.234
160. On December 7, 2020, a second Georgia hand recount once again
confirmed the results and the accuracy of the Dominion machines. Newsmax itself
reported this development on its website with the headline: “Georgia Officials: 2nd
Recount Also Shows Biden Won State.”235
161. Even though Newsmax knew that hand recounts had yet again
confirmed the accuracy of Dominion’s machines, later that same day, Newsmax
again sold its viewers on its manufactured alternate reality when it scheduled and
aired yet another interview by Greg Kelly of Sidney Powell broadcasting their lies
that Dominion rigged the 2020 election. In case there was any doubt that Kelly and
234
E-mail from Dominion, FACT SHEET: Dominion Voting Systems in Georgia (Dec. 3, 2020)
(Ex. 5).
235
Georgia Officials: 2nd Recount Also Shows Biden Won State, Newsmax (Dec. 7, 2020, 10:54
AM), https://www.newsmax.com/politics/georgia-recount-biden-win/2020/12/07/id/1000360/.
93
Newsmax brought Powell on the air for the express purpose of spreading lies about
Dominion, Kelly welcomed Powell by telling her “we’re on your side” before
steering her to the topic of Dominion. Powell falsely claimed that Dominion’s
machines were made in Venezuela, used to rig an election for Maduro, and switched
5% of the votes for Joe Biden: “We know from one of our witnesses that these
machines were created in Venezuela and the entire process was started there to make
sure Mr. Chavez won every election. . . . This is the same technology, the same
equipment that came out of Venezuela to be used here. . . . We’re essentially fighting
the entire globalist elite power structure that wants to control the world for their own
financial benefit.” Kelly agreed vehemently: “You know, two years ago I would
have said that sounds crazy but after all that’s happened I think you're absolutely
right.”236
162. Newsmax got exactly the results it was looking for. On December 8,
2020, Newsmax finally achieved a goal it had long coveted: Newsmax TV “notched
a ratings win over Fox News Channel for the very first time.” 237 In the key 25- to
54-year-old demographic prized by advertisers, Greg Kelly’s “Greg Kelly Reports”
236
Newsmax TV, The EMERGENCY APPEAL: Sidney Powell, YouTube (Dec. 7, 2020),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=QwkVKNEs0uk (Ex. 25).
237
Brian Stelter, Newsmax TV scores a ratings win over Fox News for the first time ever, CNN
Business (Dec. 8, 2020, 6:53 PM), https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/08/media/newsmax-fox-news-
ratings/index.html.
94
on Newsmax out-rated “The Story with Martha MacCallum” on Fox, drawing
229,000 viewers to Fox’s 203,000.238 Newsmax’s commitment to the race to the
bottom was working.
163. The next day, Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy boasted about the
ratings win on Twitter.239
164. Meanwhile, Fox kept pushing its own false narrative. On December 10,
2020, Fox, through the @LouDobbs account, tweeted a promotion for the Lou Dobbs
Tonight show, which stated: “The 2020 Election is a cyber Pearl Harbor. The
238
Id.
239
Christopher Ruddy (@ChrisRuddyNMX), Twitter (Dec. 9, 2020),
https://twitter.com/ChrisRuddyNMX/status/1336731893174243331
95
leftwing establishment have aligned their forces to overthrow the United States
government #MAGA #AmericaFirst #Dobbs.”240
165. On December 13, 2020, Ruddy took to Twitter again, tweeting a
Newsmax article with the headline: “Mike Lindell at Rally: Fox News ‘had to be in
on it.’”241
166. On December 14, 2020, Newsmax host John Bachman interviewed
Dick Morris, who spouted yet more lies about Dominion: “Bear in mind, Dominion
was invented by people working for Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan dictator after he
‘lost’ an election, and he then decided to ‘win’ the election by fixing the voting
machines and he expressly had them designed, it’s written in the specs that this
240
Lou Dobbs (@LouDobbs), Twitter (Dec. 10, 2020, 4:56 pm),
https://twitter.com/LouDobbs/status/1337154346795012098.
241
Christopher Ruddy (@ChrisRuddyNMX), Twitter (Dec. 13, 2020, 12:35 PM),
96
should be, so votes can be altered and not be traced.”242 Again, two months after
Morris helped cement Newsmax’s new and manufactured reality, he was rewarded
with his own show on Newsmax, Dick Morris Democracy.243
167. On December 17, Newsmax host Grant Stinchfield had MyPillow CEO
Mike Lindell appear on his show. Lindell welcomed the opportunity to tell viewers
that President Trump would have won the election had Dominion’s algorithms not
intentionally changed votes in the middle of the night. Of course, everyone at
Newsmax already knew that Lindell’s outlandish claim was a lie, and that Lindell
was a facially unreliable source. But Stinchfield wasn’t going to miss an opportunity
to amplify Lindell’s theories and emphasize Newsmax’s support for Lindell when
Lindell’s lies so neatly fit the false and defamatory narrative that Newsmax and
Stinchfield had been on the “frontlines” of feeding to their viewers for weeks.244 In
response to Lindell’s false claim that Dominion’s algorithms changed votes in the
middle of the night, Stinchfield reminded viewers that Lindell was “a big time
advertiser here on Newsmax,” for which Newsmax was “grateful.”
242
John Bachman Now, Newsmax (Dec. 14, 2020, 9:10 PM)
https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/849c5422-e609-448e-88b5-
deb1fbb12b6d?token=c9431b6b-60b7-4ce2-948d-eed6fe846f32 (Ex. 26).
243
244
Newsmax TV, Lindell: America is Watching You, Fox, YouTube (Dec. 17, 2020),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=jL8Id-q26F0; Newsmax (@newsmax) (Ex.
27); Twitter (Dec. 17, 2020, 7:45 pm),
97
168. And the next day, Newsmax co-anchors Bob Sellers and Heather
Childers invited repeat contributor Dick Morris back on air to parrot his usual lies
about Dominion’s voting software.245 This time, Morris falsely claimed that the
Antrim County, Michigan audit proved that the Michigan election results were
altered and flipped by Dominion and Smartmatic voting software:
. . . This is actual intervention in the vote count. This is through

Dominion software and Smartmatic and the accusation here is
that the vote count itself was altered and flipped through that
software. You know, it's been proven in one county in Michigan,
which had a two-week-long forensic audit and showed that the
results that originally said that Biden wanted with 63% were
wrong and Trump won by 61 . . .246
169. This statement was totally false. In fact, the official Michigan audit had
already publicly concluded the opposite—that any irregularity in Antrim County was
caused by human error, not voting machines. Newsmax and its anchors knew this,
as Newsmax reported these findings in a news story it posted to Newsmax.com on
December 17, explaining that the Antrim County audit was complete and had
confirmed (yet again) that voting machines had not flipped votes, and affirmed
Biden’s Michigan win.247
245
American Agenda, Newsmax (Dec. 18, 2020),
https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/db62a290-e360-46b9-984a-
b5fb49464496?token=ae575e6a-a10c-4124-8254-c4f88f05daec (Ex. 28).
246
Id.
247
Charlie McCarthy, Trump Earns Small Gain in Michigan County Election Audit, Newsmax
(Dec. 17, 2020, 8:32 PM), https://www.newsmax.com/politics/michigan-trump-biden-
election/2020/12/17/id/1002140/.
98
170. The “forensic audit” Morris referenced stemmed from a Facebook
video, which claimed in its caption that “Trump WON The Election NEW Evidence
Shows” because “a forensics report done on Dominion voting machines determined
that the ‘Dominion Software Was Intentionally Designed To Influence Election
Results.’”248 Michigan officials were not behind this alleged “report,” as Morris and
Newsmax knew or at the very least recklessly disregarded.
171. Instead, the report was the work of Russell Ramsland and his biased,
non-independent organization Allied Security Operations Group, which had released
it three days earlier, on December 13. As Newsmax and Morris knew or recklessly
disregarded, the “audit” was in no way an official or independent exercise. Indeed,
as Newsmax and Morris had to know, or at the very least recklessly disregarded,
Ramsland had publicly peddled these same sorts of lies about the 2018 Dallas
congressional election and 2019 Kentucky gubernatorial election. Moreover, as
Newsmax and Morris had to know, or recklessly disregarded, Ramsland had also
provided Sidney Powell and Lin Wood with affidavits that had been discredited in
numerous courts.
172. The details of just how deeply flawed and untrustworthy Ramsland’s
Antrim County report was had been publicly known and readily available since at
248
Angelo Fichera, Audit in Michigan County Refutes Dominion Conspiracy Theory,
FactCheck.org (Dec. 18, 2020), https://www.factcheck.org/2020/12/audit-in-michigan-county-
refutes-dominion-conspiracy-theory/.
99
least November 7, and would later likewise be explained by Michigan’s Republican-
controlled Senate Oversight Committee.
173. For example, in his report, Ramsland references the “allowable election
error rate established by the Federal Election Commission.” The Federal Election
Commission regulates campaign finance, not voting machines or software. The
EAC—Election Assistance Commission—certifies voting machines and software,
and of course had certified Dominion’s technology well in advance of the 2020
election.249
174. Ramsland’s report also claims that his “forensics team” “perform[ed a]
forensic duplication of the Antrim County Election Management Server running
Dominion Democracy Suite 5.5.3-002.” But there is no Democracy Suite 5.5.3-002.
Instead, 5.5.3-002 refers to the ImageCast Precinct machine, which scans, tabulates,
and stores the paper ballots, not the election management server or software.
175. And Ramsland’s report falsely claims that “all adjudication log entries
for the 2020 election cycle are missing” and must have been “manually removed.”
But Antrim County neither purchased nor used—nor possessed the hardware
249
How the U.S. Election Assistance Commission Facilitates Fair and Secure Elections, EAC
(Dec. 3, 2020),https://www.eac.gov/news/2020/12/03/how-us-election-assistance-commission-
facilitates-fair-and-secure-elections/; Certificate of Conformance, EAC (Sept. 14, 2018),
https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/voting_system/files/DSuite55_CertConf_Scope%28FINA
L%29.pdf.
100
required to use—Dominion’s adjudication software, so obviously no “log entries”
had been “removed.” They never existed in the first place, because Antrim County
did not use them.250 Indeed, it was widely known by at least November 7 that
Dominion machines had not caused the original unofficial error in the Antrim
County tally.
176. Even Trump ally Ed McBroom, the Michigan State Senator and
Chairman of the Republican-led Michigan Senate Oversight Committee,
acknowledged the truth that Newsmax refused to report. On June 23, 2021, he
released the results of an investigation by the Committee that again confirmed the
accuracy of the vote counts in Dominion’s machines in Antrim County, determined
that the conclusions in the sham Ramsland report were “indefensible” and based on
“willful ignorance or avoidance” of the proof, and recommended that the Michigan
Attorney General consider investigating “those who have been utilizing misleading
and false information about Antrim County to raise money or publicity for their own
ends.”251 McBroom also told the Washington Post in May 2021: “I don’t see how
anybody can take Mr. Ramsland and his group seriously as genuine purveyors of
250
See Declaration of Ryan Macias, FactCheck.org,
https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/Rebuttal_ASOG-Antrim_Report.pdf (last visited Aug. 6,
2021).
251
MICHIGAN, https://misenategopcdn.s3.us-east-
1.amazonaws.com/99/doccuments/20210623/SMPO_2020ElectionReport.pdf
101
fact. It’s very clear they’re beyond mistaken and misrepresenting what actually
happened.”252
December 2020-April 2021:

Dominion Demands That Newsmax Retract Its False Statements,
But Newsmax Refuses
177. The same day Newsmax aired its false claims about Dominion and
Antrim County, December 18, Dominion sent a formal retraction demand letter to
Newsmax.253 In that letter, Dominion once again put Newsmax on formal written
notice of facts—which Newsmax knew of from widespread reporting, from
receiving numerous iterations of Dominion’s “SETTING THE RECORD
STRAIGHT” emails beginning over a month before, and from countless reports and
documents in the public domain, many of which it had reported about on its online
website—that demonstrated that the claims Newsmax had been broadcasting,
publishing, and republishing about Dominion were false, including:
 Dominion’s voting systems are designed and certified by the federal

government, and all of its vote tallies are 100% auditable.254
 Election officials in Arizona released a letter explaining that “The

evidence overwhelmingly shows the system used in Maricopa County
is accurate and provided voters with a reliable election ... The Dominion
252
253
Letter from Dominion to Newsmax Chief Executive Officer Christopher Ruddy (Dec. 18, 2020)
(“Dominion’s First Retraction Demand Letter”) (Ex. 7).
254
E-mails from Dominion, SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: FACTS & RUMORS (Exs.
1-5).
102
tabulation met mandatory requirements during logic and accuracy
testing ... [a]nd after [the] 2020 elections, the hand count audit showed
the machines generated an accurate count.”255
 On November 6, 2020, the Michigan Secretary of State had declared

that the errors in Antrim County, Michigan were the result of user error,
and had explained further that Dominion’s “equipment and software
did not malfunction and all ballots were properly tabulated.”256
 Dominion is an American company with no ties to Venezuela.

Dominion is not owned by Smartmatic nor does it have any financial or
collaborative relationship with Smartmatic, and in fact Smartmatic had
filed two separate lawsuits against Dominion more than 10 years ago.257
 Votes are counted and reported by county and state election officials—
not by Dominion or any other election technology company. Dominion
equipment is used by county and state officials to tabulate ballots.
Dominion’s voting systems are designed and certified by the U.S.
government to be closed and do not rely on network connectivity.258
 Dominion’s source code is reviewed by independent third-party labs

that test for, among other things, accuracy and security as part of the
federal and state certification process.259
255
Voters, Maricopa Cnty.
(Nov. 17, 2020), https://www.maricopa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/64676/PR69-11-17-20-
Letter-to-Voters.
256
257
Dominion’s First Retraction Demand Letter (Ex. 7); Ali Swenson, Smartmatic does not own
Dominion Voting Systems, Associated Press (Nov. 17, 2020), https://apnews.com/article/fact-
checking-afs:Content:9740535009.
258
Dominion’s First Retraction Demand Letter; Jude Joffee-Block, False reports claim election
servers were seized in Germany, Associated Press (Nov. 15, 2020),
https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-9754011363.
259
See, e.g., U.S. Election Assistance Comm’n, How the U.S. Election Assistance Comm’n
Facilitates Fair and Secure Elections, (Dec. 3, 2020) https://www.eac.gov/news/2020/12/03/how-
us-election-assistance-commission-facilitates-fair-and-secure-elections/ (last visited Aug. 6,
2021) (“Before voting machines and election management systems are used in elections, the
systems undergo rigorous hardware and software testing by laboratories accredited by the EAC
103
 No software updates were made on the eve of the presidential election.
 Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger declared

that “Georgia’s historic first statewide audit reaffirmed that the state’s
new secure paper ballot voting system accurately counted and reported
results.”260
 Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney’s 2006 letter on election integrity

made no reference whatsoever to Dominion.261
 Newsmax’s sources such as Powell, Giuliani, and Ramsland—as well

as the individuals those sources purported to rely on—were proven liars
and entirely unreliable.
178. Dominion’s December 18 letter also attached its 15-page retraction
demand letter it had sent to Powell two days earlier concerning the nearly identical
lies about Dominion she had been spreading since Election Day. 262 That letter
included even more facts detailing the complete falsity of her lies about Dominion
and the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST). The testing encompasses
security, accuracy, functionality, accessibility, usability, and privacy based on requirements in the
EAC’s Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG)”); U.S. Election Assistance Comm’n,
Frequently Asked Questions, https://www.eac.gov/voting-equipment/frequently-asked-questions
(last visited Aug. 6, 2021) (“the test labs will examine the source code to ensure compliance with
the voluntary voting system guidelines”); U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMM’N, TESTING &
CERTIFICATION PROGRAM MANUAL, VERSION 2.0, (May 31, 2015),
https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/eac_assets/1/28/Cert%20Manual%207%208%2015%20FI
NAL.pdf (“[T]he VSTL [Voting System Test Laboratory] must complete the source code review
of the software delivered from the manufacturer for compliance with the VVSG [Voluntary Voting
System Guidelines]”)
260
Dominion’s First Retraction Demand Letter (Ex. 7); Historic First Statewide Audit of Paper
Ballots Upholds Result of Presidential Race, Ga. Sec’y of State (Nov. 19, 2020),
esult_of_presidential_race..
261
Letter from Congresswoman Maloney to Henry M. Paulson (Oct. 6, 2006), Complaint at Ex.
24, Pearson v. Kemp, No. 1:20-cv-04809 (N.D. Ga. Nov. 25, 2020) [Dkt. 1-24],
https://defendingtherepublic.org/?page_id=986.
262
See Dominion’s First Retraction Demand Letter.
104
and more evidence of why Powell and her sources were completely unreliable and
proven liars, including:
 Powell lied about having a Dominion employee “on tape” saying he

“rigged the election for Biden” when she knew no such tape exists.263
 Federal judges in Michigan and Arizona had called her filings “nothing but
speculation and conjecture that votes for President Trump were destroyed,
discarded or switched to votes for Vice President Biden,” “were largely
based on anonymous witnesses, hearsay, and irrelevant analysis of
unrelated elections,” and that her so-called experts—including
Ramsland—“reach implausible conclusions, often because they are
derived from wholly unreliable sources.”264
 Election and government officials—including Republicans and Trump

allies—in Michigan, Arizona, and Georgia had explicitly debunked her
election claims about Dominion.265
 Even Tucker Carlson called Powell out for failing to provide any evidence
to support her assertions.266
 Powell deliberately misrepresented Joshua Merritt—aka, “Spyder”—as a

“military intelligence expert” even though he had no such expertise,
drafted nearly identical affidavits for two separate witnesses, and had
doctored the official Georgia Secretary of State certification for Dominion
263
Id.
264
See Op. & Order Den. Pl.’s Emer. Motion. For Decl., Emerg., and Inj. Relief at 34, Whitmer v.
City of Detroit, No. 20-cv-12134 (E.D. Mich. Dec. 7, 2020) [Dkt. 62]; Order at 24-25, Bowyer v.
Ducey, No. 2-20-cv-02321 (D. Ariz. Dec. 9, 2020) [Dkt. 84].
265
Nick Corasaniti, Reid J. Epstein & Jim Rutenberg, The Times Called Officials in Every State:
No Evidence of Voter Fraud, The N. Y. Times (Nov. 10, 2020),
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/us/politics/voting-fraud.html; Letter from Clint Hickman to
Maricopa Cty. Voters (Nov. 17, 2020),
https://www.maricopa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/64676/PR69-11-17-20-Letter-to-Voters;
Historic First Statewide Audit of Paper Ballots Upholds Result of Presidential Race, Georgia
Secretary of State,
esult_of_presidential_race (last visited Aug. 6, 2021).
266
Tucker Carlson SLAMS Sidney Powell for not Providing Evidence Election was Taken from
Trump, YouTube (Nov. 19, 2020), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57l56J47xhk.
105
in order to falsely claim it was undated. (It would later be reported by the
Washington Post that Merritt had formerly worked for Russell Ramsland
at ASOG—another critical fact that Powell failed to disclose.267)
179. But Newsmax refused to retract. Instead, just a few hours after
Dominion sent these letters to Newsmax, Newsmax and Greg Kelly invited Russell
Ramsland on air to broadcast more lies about Dominion, and specifically to promote
Ramsland’s long-debunked Antrim County report—a report Newsmax knew, or
recklessly disregarded, to be false. During the segment, Kelly repeatedly endorsed
the completely unreliable Ramsland and his false Antrim County report, calling it a
“very important report” that “made perfect sense,” and saying “it’s so troubling to
me that people are discounting this, but I don’t think you can steal something this
big and get away with it.”268 Yet all the while, Newsmax knew that Ramsland was
simply recycling the same discredited falsehoods he had originally attached to the
2018 Dallas congressional election. Newsmax knew this because prior to Kelly’s
December 18 segment, Newsmax had reviewed an earlier interview of Ramsland in
which he made these same false claims about the 2018 Dallas election, but that time
making the claims about a Dominion competitor; Newsmax played part of that
interview during Kelly’s December 18 segment.
267
268
Greg Kelly Reports, Newsmax (Dec. 18, 2020),
https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/61b6c650-cf46-400d-9606-
6296bd102730?token=f8a458a8-5923-4a4d-a01d-1ca5ac17de27 (Ex. 29).
106
180. Rather than retract its month of defamatory statements, the next day,
Newsmax tried a ploy and issued a “clarification” regarding its lies about Dominion
rigging the election, titled “Facts about Dominion, Smartmatic You Should
Know.”269
181. The purported “clarification” acknowledged what Newsmax long knew
to be true: “No evidence has been offered that Dominion or Smartmatic used
software or reprogrammed software that manipulated votes in the 2020 election.”270
Newsmax, however, failed to retract the wholesale alternate reality it had spent
almost two months cultivating, feeding, and spreading about Dominion, including
Stinchfield’s false assertion that Newsmax’s own “investigative unit” had
“uncovered” evidence corroborating Powell’s false claims. Newsmax also couched
its “clarification” in terms that conspicuously avoided correcting other of its earlier
lies: “Dominion has stated its company has no ownership relationship with the
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's family, Sen. Dianne Feinstein's family, the Clinton
family, Hugo Chavez, or the government of Venezuela.”271
182. In sum, despite knowing the truth, Newsmax in its “clarification”
pointedly refused to actually correct its earlier lies about Dominion or issue a
269
Facts About Dominion, Smartmatic You Should Know, Newsmax (Dec. 19, 2020, 8:24 PM),
https://www.newsmax.com/us/smartmatic-dominion-voting-systems-software-
election/2020/12/19/id/1002355/.
270
Id.
271
Id.
107
retraction of those falsehoods. Rather, the alternate reality Newsmax helped
promote—that Dominion rigged the 2020 election, among other lies—continues to
persist. Regardless, at this point Newsmax’s defamatory broadcasts had already done
severe damage to Dominion, and Dominion continues to suffer as a result of
Newsmax’s lies.
183. On December 21, 2020, Attorney General Barr once again publicly
rebutted the election fraud lies. He stated “at a news conference that he saw no basis
for the federal government seizing voting machines. He also said that he did not
intend to appoint a special counsel to investigate allegations of voter fraud.”272 As
Barr told the Associated Press, “If I thought a special counsel at this stage was the
right tool and was appropriate, I would name one, but I haven’t, and I’m not going
to.”273
184. That same day, and just two days after issuing its “clarification,”
Newsmax invited Mike Lindell onto its air. Sebastian Gorka, who was guest-hosting
the Greg Kelly Reports show that night, prefaced the Lindell segment by telling
viewers that Newsmax was “not going to ignore” alleged evidence of election fraud,
272
Matt Zapotosky, Rosalind S. Helderman, Amy Gardner, & Karoun Demirjian, ‘Pure insanity’:
How Trump and his allies pressured the Justice Department to help overturn the election, Wash.
Post (June 16, 2021), https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/trump-justice-
department-2020-election/.
273
Id.
108
“because we fight for the truth and we believe that this is still the greatest nation on
God’s earth and nobody gets to steal it from us.”274 He then introduced “[t]he great
Mike Lindell,” who he said was “fighting for America.”275 Lindell immediately, and
entirely predictably, launched into his stock-in-trade false claims of voting machine
fraud, and specifically said “the biggest fraud is the Dominion machines.”276 While
Gorka cut in to tell Lindell “I don’t want to discuss,” he did not tell his audience that
what Lindell had just said was false.277 Rather, Gorka said simply “[w]e’re not going
to get into the minutia and the details,” implicitly endorsing rather than rebutting
Lindell’s lies.278
185. On December 22, 2020, Dominion responded to Newsmax’s continued
lies by writing Newsmax a second letter explaining that Dominion was
“disappointed that Newsmax continues to publish lies about US Dominion Inc.,”
despite Dominion’s retraction demand.279 Indeed, rather than “retracting the false
statements about Dominion,” “Newsmax instead decided to double down on its libel
while simultaneously claiming to ‘clarify’ its news coverage.”
274
Mike Lindell to Newsmax TV: “American Dream” Is on the Line, Newsmax (Dec. 21, 2020),
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/mike-lindell-election-lawsuits-american-
dream/2020/12/21/id/1002635/ (Ex. 30).
275
Id.
276
Id.
277
Id.
278
Id.
279
Dominion’s Second Retraction Letter (Ex. 8).
109
186. Newsmax responded to Dominion’s letters on December 28, 2020,
acknowledging receipt of both letters. But in that response, Newsmax’s lawyers tried
to rewrite history and ignored the actual statements in its many broadcasts about
Dominion, falsely stating, “At no time did the hosts or Newsmax indicate support
for or agreement with her [Powell’s] allegations. At the same time, they did not have
any specific knowledge that the evidence she cited was non-existent, nor that her
claims were false.”280 But as Newsmax knew, not only did it repeatedly endorse
Powell’s lies, it manufactured a false narrative and alternative reality that Dominion
rigged the 2020 election and stole it from Trump, which defied the mountain of
evidence in the public record, Dominion’s “SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT”
emails, and Dominion’s retraction demands.
187. Notwithstanding its acknowledgment that Powell’s and others’ false
claims about Dominion “lack[ed] evidence” and after quietly taking two stories
espousing those false claims off its website, Newsmax continued to peddle the same
litany of lies about Dominion.
188. For example, after a single one of Newsmax’s on-air hosts, Bob Sellers,
initially rebuked a guest for peddling known lies about Dominion on air, he walked
back his rebuke and voiced his support for the guest the next day. On February 2,
2021, during an interview of Mike Lindell about his recent Twitter ban, Lindell tried
280
Newsmax’s Response to Dominion’s Retraction Letters (Ex. 9).
110
to claim he had “100% proof” of election fraud via Dominion’s voting systems.
Newsmax co-anchor Bob Sellers interrupted Lindell, told the audience that
Newsmax had not verified any of his claims, and stormed off set.281 But Sellers’
resolve was short-lived. Facing immediate backlash from both Newsmax and its
audience, Sellers apologized on air the next day, calling Lindell a “friend of this
network” who would continue to be an important guest.282
189. Throughout this timeframe, Newsmax continued pushing a fraud
narrative that was now inextricably linked to Dominion through Newsmax’s prior
false statements. Because of the connection that Newsmax pushed between
Dominion and election fraud, Newsmax’s later references to election fraud—even
those that did not mention Dominion specifically—reinforced the false narrative
connecting Dominion to election fraud. Newsmax had already linked Dominion with
the false claims of fraud and as a key part of the fictitious story that the election was
281
Joe Walsh, Newsmax Anchor Cuts Off Mike Lindell As Network Braces For Lawsuit From
Dominion, Forbes (Feb. 2, 2021, 6:10 PM),
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/02/02/newsmax-anchor-cuts-off-mike-lindell-as-
network-braces-for-lawsuit-from-dominion/?sh=20c65bd93e1e.
282
Katie Dowd, Trump fans turn on Newsmax after its off-the-Rails interview with MyPillow’s
Mike Lindell, SFGate (Feb. 3, 2021, 3:06 PM), https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/mypillow-
newsmax-bob-sellers-twitter-segment-15921742.php; Ron Dicker, Newsmax Host is Now Sorry
for Walking Out on ‘Important Guest’ Mike Lindell, Huffpost (Feb. 4, 2021, 11:06 AM),
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bob-sellers-apology-mike-
lindell_n_601bc8e6c5b62bf307546ac2?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29
vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAABVpma7PeYPG_hqxrXqNeqc8dS8_v7mjdV03oT
fbR2K1Bdd0YVGzVpT0KSIZeNl1TTE7yQ8FLLB0MjladtFIrFmP1ntsnfyO46pQbhe2-
rToAjXiIYzbb4fdbYCaSOYI1iUGVxZ_9TqP41oXr-d6CWKgvECgeIkixLHzgSMXomB6.
111
“rigged,” and sought to maintain its momentum as viewers increasingly switched
over to Newsmax. As Newsmax itself reported in late December, “Sixty-seven
percent of Republicans believe Joe Biden won the presidential election due to voter
fraud.”283
190. Even though, months later, Newsmax still refused to retract its lies, on
April 30, 2021, Newsmax issued a half-hearted “apology” statement to Dr. Eric
Coomer, Dominion’s then-Director of Product Strategy and Security. Remarkably,
Newsmax admitted that its hosts and guests peddled unproven claims that “Dr.
Coomer played a role in manipulating Dominion voting machines, Dominion voting
software, and the final vote counts in the 2020 presidential election” even though
Newsmax had “no evidence that such allegations were true.”284 Yet far from owning
up to the harm it caused, Newsmax’s choice phrasing stated only that Dr. Coomer
was not involved in the “manipulation” of voting machines during the 2020 election,
thus suggesting by clear implication that someone else at Dominion had been
involved—which was consistent with the false narrative Newsmax had been
283
Solange Reyner, Poll: 67 Percent of Republicans Believe Voter Fraud Boosted Biden to Win,
Newsmax (Dec. 30, 2020, 3:24 PM), https://www.newsmax.com/politics/voterfraud-biden-
republicans-2020/2020/12/30/id/1003672/.
284
Statement About Dr. Eric Coomer, Director of Product Strategy and Security at Dominion
Voting Systems, Newsmax (Apr. 30, 2021), previously available at
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/eric-coomer-dominion-voting-
systems/2021/04/30/id/1019671/
[https://web.archive.org/web/20210503051939/https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/eric-
coomer-dominion-voting-systems/2021/04/30/id/1019671/].
112
endorsing for months that Dominion as a whole was a corrupt company responsible
for election fraud. Newsmax still failed to state what it had known for months—
there is no evidence that Dominion rigged the 2020 Presidential Election—let alone
retract the multitude of other lies it made, propagated, and endorsed in its
disinformation campaign against Dominion. And, of course, Newsmax’s “apology”
to Dr. Coomer wasn’t given nearly the same prominence as its original knowingly
false claims about Dominion (and Dr. Coomer), which were broadcast repeatedly on
primetime TV for weeks.
191. Newsmax’s competitor OAN reacted to the Coomer settlement by
publicly (and falsely) scolding Newsmax for having settled with Dominion. At some
point after this scolding, Newsmax took down its “clarification” from its website.
192. Meanwhile, Newsmax continues to amplify and promote the
individuals spreading lies about Dominion and the election. As just one example,
the same day Newsmax published its half-hearted apology to Dr. Coomer, Newsmax
promoted the social media platform of known Dominion defamation campaign
ringleader Mike Lindell, telling its readers that Lindell is “a vocal proponent of
claims the 2020 election was stolen.”285 Instead of telling its readers the truth—that
Lindell’s claims about Dominion and the election, which Lindell has turned into an
Charlie McCarthy, MyPillow’s Lindell to Relaunch ‘Frank’ Social Media Website at South
285
Dakota Rally, Newsmax (Apr. 30, 2021, 12:10 PM), https://www.newsmax.com/politics/lindell-

mypillow-frank-social-media/2021/04/30/id/1019657/.
113
entire series of defamatory “docu-movies,” are false—Newsmax instead continues
to express support for Lindell and his lies about Dominion, linking readers to other
stories Newsmax published agreeing with Lindell’s election fraud claims, praising
him as an “American Hero,” and promoting sales of his MyPillow products.286 And
most recently, Newsmax has aired Lindell’s commercials for an upcoming “cyber-
symposium” at which Lindell will tell yet more lies about Dominion—and Newsmax
used the occasion to criticize Fox for not airing those same commercials.287
193. CNN recently broadcast a report showing that people continue to
believe the lies about Dominion as fact, including Mike Lindell’s lies. One
Republican election official stated that she was “unable to convince [her]
constituents of the simple fact that the election wasn’t stolen: ‘They are like, “Well,
Mike Lindell says this.”’” She elaborated that Lindell’s claims “‘made me angry. . .
. He has created a lot of doubt in a lot of peoples’ minds even though the count was
accurate.’”288 Lindell himself acknowledged that he wants his viewers to believe his
286
Mike Lindell Targeted, Help Him Today!, Newsmax (Jan. 28, 2021, 11:52 AM),
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/mike-lindell-mypillow-boycott/2021/01/28/id/1007643/.
287
Fox News Bans Mike Lindell Ad, MyPillow Drops Network, Newsmax (July 30, 2021, 6:22
AM), https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/fox-news-mike-lindell-mypillow-
ad/2021/07/30/id/1030532/; Where Is Mike Lindell? He disappears from Fox News, Newsmax
begins manhunt, YouTube (Aug. 6, 2021), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmLgmdghAII.
288
Casey Tolan et al., MyPillow magnate Mike Lindell’s latest election conspiracy theory is his
most bizarre yet, CNN (Aug. 5, 2021), https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/05/politics/mike-lindell-
mypillow-ceo-election-claims-invs/index.html.
114
movies. When asked, “The people who have watched your video believe what you
say?” Lindell responded: “100 percent.”289
Ruddy Attempts to Rewrite History and Distance Himself and Newsmax From
Their Manufactured Alternate Reality—Meanwhile, More and More Evidence
Mounts Disproving the Lies and Holding Those Who Spread Them Accountable
194. On May 24, 2021, in a desperate attempt to stave off a defamation
lawsuit from Dominion for Newsmax’s manufactured disinformation campaign,
Newsmax’s CEO wrote a letter to Dominion Founder and CEO John Poulos.290 But
much like Newsmax’s stories about Dominion, Ruddy’s May 24 letter was a work
of fiction.
195. Ruddy first claimed that Newsmax never received Dominion’s
December 18 retraction demand letter. But as Newsmax’s own lawyers admitted in
December 2020, “the email addresses used for Mr. Ruddy and Mr. Chandler” to send
that letter “appear to be correct.”291
196. Ruddy next claimed that neither he nor Newsmax generally knew their
lies were in fact lies—and that they continue to be unaware “of any independent
review and examination of the voting software.”292 Of course, this was yet another
lie by Ruddy because both he and Newsmax were aware of and at a minimum
recklessly disregarded the investigations by independent election experts, Trump’s
289
Id. (quoting embedded video).
290
May 24, 2021 Letter from C. Ruddy to J. Poulos (Ex. 10).
291
Id.
292
Id.
115
own administration, and even Trump’s loyal supporters debunking Newsmax’s lies
about Dominion and the election, not to mention the rulings in federal court
forcefully dismissing every lawsuit regarding Dominion’s machines.
197. Ruddy saved his most ludicrous revisionist history for last: he claimed
that all Newsmax did was “report then President Trump’s public claims, the claims
made by his lawyers, and claims they made in legal documents in several states.”293
Even if Ruddy’s revisionist history were true (it is not), the law does not provide a
get-out-of-jail-free card to broadcast lies with knowing or reckless disregard for the
truth. But Ruddy’s revisionist history has no basis in reality. As just one of many
examples, when Newsmax’s Grant Stinchfield lied to Newsmax’s viewers that he
had an “investigative unit” that had independently “been uncovering” evidence that
Dominion rigged the election, Newsmax was not simply reporting on Trump’s
claims—it was manufacturing the claims itself.
198. In the months following Ruddy’s hollow attempt to rewrite history and
stave off responsibility for his and his network’s disinformation campaign, even
more evidence has surfaced demonstrating the total falsity of Newsmax’s lies about
Dominion. For example, on June 23, 2021, the Republican-led Michigan Senate
Oversight Committee, chaired by Trump ally Senator Ed McBroom, released a 55-
page report, which stated that “The Committee found no evidence of widespread or
293
Id.
116
systemic fraud in Michigan's prosecution of the 2020 election” and expressed total
confidence that the state’s 2020 election outcome—that Biden defeated Trump by
about 155,000 votes, or 2.8%—“represent[s] the true results of the ballots cast by
the people of Michigan.”294 The report specifically called out individuals like Lindell
and Ramsland for their false claims about systemic fraud in Michigan, stating that
they “have been utilizing misleading and false information about Antrim County to
raise money or publicity for their own ends,” and calling for the Michigan Attorney
General to investigate them for their conduct.295 Senator McBroom and the
Committee thoroughly debunked the Antrim County Report, providing the actual
ballot counts and details demonstrating that Dominion’s machines had it right all
along and were the reason the results were ultimately accurate—a Trump victory by
almost 4,000 votes in Antrim County.
294
MICHIGAN (Apr. 9, 2021), https://misenategopcdn.s3.us-east-
1.amazonaws.com/99/doccuments/20210623/SMPO_2020ElectionReport.pdf; David Eggert,
Michigan Senate GOP probe: No systemic fraud in election, ABC News (June 23, 2021),
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/michigan-senate-gop-probe-systemic-fraud-election-
78445547; Clara Hendrickson & Dave Boucher, Michigan Republican-led investigation rejects
Trump’s claim that Nov. 3 election was stolen, Detroit Free Press (June 23, 2021),
https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/06/23/michigan-senate-investigation-
election-trump/5035244001/.
295
MICHIGAN (Apr. 9, 2021), at 19, https://misenategopcdn.s3.us-east-
117
199. On June 24, 2021, the Supreme Court of the State of New York,
Appellate Division, First Judicial Department, suspended Rudolph Giuliani from the
practice of law after it determined that he had “made knowing false and misleading
factual statements to support his claim that the presidential election was stolen from
his client [Donald Trump],” based on “uncontroverted evidence” that he made such
“demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public
at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump and the
Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed effort at reelection in 2020.”296
200. On June 27, 2021, even more evidence emerged demonstrating that
former Attorney General William Barr’s public statement on December 1, 2020 that
the U.S. Department of Justice “had uncovered no evidence of widespread voter
fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election” was just the tip of the
iceberg. Further reporting revealed that Barr had “received two briefings from
cybersecurity experts at the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI” about
the allegations of rigged voting machines, after which he and his team at the
Department of Justice “realized from the beginning it was just bullshit.” Barr further
disclosed that “even if the machines somehow changed the count, it would show up
296
0Giuliani%20(2021-00506)%20PC.pdf; https://apnews.com/article/rudy-giuliani-new-york-law-
license-suspended-c67f4504a22f8642d6096f29e3a5c51e; Jim Mustian, New York Court Suspends
Rudy Giuliani’s law license, Associated Press (June 24, 2021), https://apnews.com/article/rudy-
giuliani-new-york-law-license-suspended-c67f4504a22f8642d6096f29e3a5c51e.
118
when they were recounted by hand,” and that Dominion’s machines were just
“counting machine[s], and they save everything that was counted. So you just
reconcile the two. There had been no discrepancy reported anywhere, and I’m still
not aware of any discrepancy.”297
201. On August 3, 2021, a federal judge in Colorado disciplined two lawyers
who filed a frivolous lawsuit based on lies against Dominion following the election,
concluding that the case was frivolous and brought in bad faith. In his 68-page
opinion, Judge N. Reid Neureiter concluded: “Albeit disorganized and fantastical,
the Complaint’s allegations are extraordinarily serious and, if accepted as true by
large numbers of people, are the stuff of which violent insurrections are made.”298
202. Even with these latest facts further debunking the lie that Dominion
designed its machines to and in fact did steal the 2020 election from Trump,
Newsmax refuses to set the record straight and let its viewers know that its numerous
broadcasts about Dominion were lies. Instead, Newsmax continues to promote its
alternate reality and dupe its viewers, at Dominion’s and the American public’s
expense.
297
Jonathan D. Karl, Inside William Barr’s Breakup with Trump, The Atlantic (June 27, 2021),
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/06/william-barrs-trump-administration-
attorney-general/619298/.
298
Order Granting Defendants’ Motions for Sanctions, at 6, O’Rourke et al. v. Dominion Voting
Systems, Inc., et al., No. 20-cv-03747 (D. Colo. Aug. 3, 2021), available at https://context-
cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/779f6d9a-5696-4bdf-8d1b-
a63d7f08d51a/note/892ae5bb-664f-4125-af38-1cb1151ba5d0.#page=1.
119
The Lies About Dominion Go Viral
203. Newsmax did not just broadcast its false and defamatory statements
about Dominion on the air on its cable channel; it also, as a matter of practice, posted
and republished its broadcasts across its multiple media platforms via its Newsmax
Media enterprise, which is comprised of the Newsmax.com web site through which
it streams its newscasts for free to anyone who will watch them, its social media
accounts, its YouTube account, and its mobile apps.
204. The Newsmax channel is available to over 70 million American
households via the leading satellite and digital television services, and is available
for free to anyone with an internet connection via newsmax.com.299 The week after
the election, Newsmax’s ratings jumped almost ten times Newsmax’s pre-election
ratings.300 In the same period, daytime viewership also increased nearly ten-fold.301
Daily active users of Newsmax’s mobile app have also soared following the election,
increasing by almost a multiple of 14 from October 20, 2020 to November 24,
2020.302 By February 2021, Newsmax was able to boast that it had secured 32 times
299
John Eggerton, Newsmax Grabs Fox Distribution Executive, NextTV (May 14, 2019),
https://www.nexttv.com/news/newsmax-grabs-fox-distribution-executive.
300
David Bauder, Trump-friendly Newsmax seeks to cut into Fox’s viewership, Associated Press
(Nov. 18, 2020), https://apnews.com/article/newsmax-sudden-competitor-fox-news-
bddb5f123fe8d187570129a8425c7303.
301
Id.
302
Nathan Bomey, Could Fox News Lose Its Grip on Far-Right Conservative Viewers to Newsmax,
OAN?, USA Today (Dec. 21, 2020), https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/12/21/fox-
news-newsmax-oan-cable-news-donald-trump-2020-election/3881624001/.
120
more downloads of the mobile apps through which it streams its programming since
the weeks prior to the election.303
205. After Newsmax and its personalities had broadcast defamatory
falsehoods into millions of homes and posted those falsehoods on Newsmax
websites and social media accounts, the lies went viral as people tweeted, retweeted,
and raged that Dominion had stolen their votes. That was completely foreseeable
to—and intended by—Newsmax.
206. The harm to Dominion is unprecedented and irreparable because of
how fervently millions of people believe Newsmax—because of Newsmax’s
publication, republication, and promotion of the falsehoods about Dominion it used
as the foundation for the burgeoning growth of its business in the wake of the 2020
election.
207. Through this race to the bottom among Fox, Newsmax, and OAN,
Dominion has been falsely branded as synonymous with election fraud. Thus, even
later generalized references to “election fraud” or similar statements tie back for
viewers and readers to Newsmax’s defamatory campaign.
208. Newsmax’s lies did not simply harm Dominion. They harmed
democracy. They harmed the idea of credible elections. They harmed a once-
303
Bill Hoffman, More Than 5 Million Newsmax App Downloads!, Newsmax (Feb. 25, 2021, 2:08
PM), https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/app-newsmax-apple-store-google-
play/2021/02/25/id/1011529/.
121
unshakeable faith in democratic and peaceful transfers of power. They harmed the
foundational idea, as stated in the Declaration of Independence, that our country
derives its “just powers” from “the consent of the governed.”
209. Indeed, some Newsmax viewers believed the lies about Dominion with
such devotion that they took the fight to the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021
and at rallies across the country to #StopTheSteal, inflicting violence, terror, and
death along the way.304 “[C]rucially, supportive media outlets amplified [Trump’s]
claims, from wholehearted cheerleading on Newsmax and One America News
Network (OAN) to credulous acceptance of gossamer-thin (and failed) legal
challenges.”305 “And in the minds of millions, including some of those who sacked
the Capitol, those outlets helped legitimize the groundless fraud claims.”306 A banner
at the on January 6 read: “No Machines Dominion Steals!”
304
Bill Keveney & Maria Puente, How conservative media stoked baseless election-fraud claims
that motivated DC rioters, USA Today (Jan 13, 2021, 4:49 PM),
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2021/01/11/dc-riots-how-newsmax-oan-
conservative-outlets-fueled-mob/6589298002/.
305
Id.
306
Id.
122
210. Newsmax’s promotion and endorsement of these lies about Dominion
led its viewers to conclude that these baseless and false conspiracy theories were
true. Newsmax fanned the flames, and did not care what else burned down in the
process as it spread these malicious falsehoods about Dominion.
While Dominion and the Country Suffered, Newsmax Flourished

211. The lies about Dominion were good business for Newsmax. Newsmax
TV has experienced a ratings surge across-the-board. The chart below shows the
explosion in ratings Newsmax experienced as it continued to feed its audience lies
about Dominion to keep them coming back.307
307
Id.
123
308
212. Newsmax’s website traffic on newsmax.com spiked by 145% in
December 2020 over the previous year.309 In November 2020, Newsmax’s app was
downloaded over 3 million times, and Newsmax boasted that the uptick was a result
of “attracting millions who are leaving Fox News and switching to Newsmax TV.” 310
Newsmax’s mobile app has also experienced a dramatic spike in downloads since
the election, boasting over 3 million downloads in November 2020, boosting the
Newsmax app to the top ten apps in the iPhone app store.311
213. As Newsmax’s ratings and traffic have risen, so have its advertising
revenues. Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy boasted that ad revenues for Newsmax
308
Newsmax TV Ratings, Cable Rankings (Aug. 4, 2021), https://ctv.kwayisi.org/networks/nmax/
(input relevant dates in graph).
309
Lindsey Ellefson, Newsmax’s Online Visitors Spiked 148% in December Over Previous Year,
The Wrap (Jan. 28, 2021, 6:59 AM), https://www.thewrap.com/newsmax-traffic-spiked-
december-2020/.
310
Newsmax App Sees 3 Million Downloads This Month, Newsmax (Nov. 23, 2020, 12:52 PM),
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/newsmax-tv-mobile-app/2020/11/23/id/998372/.
311
Newsmax TV Makes iPhone’s Top 10 Apps!, Newsmax (Nov. 9, 2020, 5:22 PM),
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/newsmax-tv-iphone-app-top-10/2020/11/09/id/996143/.
124
“are tripling in Q4” of 2020 “compared to last year,” and Newsmax expects ad
revenues “will double again by the end of Q1 2021.”312 Newsmax CEO Christopher
Ruddy has said Newsmax is on a “hiring splurge” following the election.313
Dominion Has Suffered Enormous Harm

214. As a result of the false accusations broadcast by Newsmax into millions
of American homes, Dominion has suffered unprecedented harm and its employees’
lives have been put in danger.
215. After watching Newsmax broadcasts, countless Twitter users believed
and began spreading Newsmax’s defamatory falsehoods about Dominion across
social media.
216. For example, one person responding to a tweet decrying election
conspiracies tweeted the video of Sidney Powell’s November 21, 2020 appearance
on Newsmax with the caption, “You need to do some basic research first. This is
ANOTHER to help you[r] ignorance.”314
312
Network, AdWeek (Nov. 23, 2020) https://www.adweek.com/convergent-tv/newsmax-
313
Lisa Richwine & Helen Coster, Trump support, anger at Fox News, Reuters (Dec. 10, 2020,
5:20 AM), https://www.reuters.com/article/media-conservative/newsmax-plans-expansion-to-
capitalize-on-trump-support-anger-at-fox-news-idINKBN28K17S?edition-redirect=uk.
314
SW (@SWMDUSA), Twitter (Nov. 21, 2020, 8:09 PM),
https://twitter.com/SWMDUSA/status/1330362755124256775.
125
217. As a result of the disinformation campaign against Dominion, the
company and its employees have been targeted and have received death threats and
calls for jail time.
218. For example, one person posted, “Why isn’t every single Dominion
employee in jail for their election fraud?!!!!!!!!!”315
315
Woody James (@WoodsonTJames), Twitter (Dec. 9, 2020, 12:35 PM), previously available at
https://twitter.com/WoodsonTJames/status/1336726130771038208.
126
219. Another person posted, “jail dominion find them…ask allies to track
them down.”316
220. One Dominion employee received text messages stating “we are
already watching you. Come clean and you will live.”
221. One person left the following message on Dominion’s customer
support line:
You’re all fucking dead, You’re all fucking dead. We’re bringing
back the firing squad and you fuckers are all dead, everybody
involved up against the wall you motherfuckers. We’re gonna have a
fucking lottery to fucking give people a chance to shoot you
316
Proud zionist conservative, previously Lionslovestrump (@leonkhanin1234), Twitter (Dec. 8,
2020, 9:26 PM), https://twitter.com/leonkhanin1234/status/1336497514598555650.
127
motherfuckers you fucking wait you cocksuckers you commie pieces
of shit. We’re going to fucking kill you all you motherfuckers. After a
fair trial of course you pieces of shit. The American people are fucking
coming for you this is the end of your fucking line guys your fucking
days are numbered you better enjoy your Thanksgiving because you’ll
never see another one you fucking cocksuckers. You will be gone soon.
Happy Thanksgiving. Cock suckers. You’re almost done just watch and
see what happens. Check out the executive order from September 12,
2018. You’ll see what’s going to happen. You’ll own nothing. You’ll
be on the fucking 2030 plan because you’ll own nothing you fucking
cocksuckers. It’s coming. Buckle your fucking seatbelts. Watch what’s
going to happen next.
222. Another person sent a Dominion employee an email with the subject
line, “Time is up” and with the message, “You have 24 hours....”
223. And another person left the following message on Dominion’s main
office line:
Yeah, good afternoon. Fuck you, fucking scumbags. We’re gonna blow
your fucking building up. Piece of fucking shit.
224. And most recently—on July 4, no less—someone threw a brick through
the window of a Dominion office.
225. Because of these threats and numerous others, Dominion has made
significant expenditures to protect its people from harm—including by employing
on-site police and security. Since the beginning of the viral disinformation
campaign, Dominion has spent more than $600,000 on private security for the
protection of its people.
128
226. As a direct result of the viral disinformation campaign, Dominion has
been forced to make significant expenditures in an attempt to mitigate the harm to
its business. To date, Dominion has incurred expenses of more than $700,000 to that
end.
227. Dominion is a for-profit company that provides local election officials
with tools they can use to run elections. It generates revenue by selling voting
technology, licensing software, and providing related services to elected officials
from both political parties. It contracts with state and local governments to provide
its voting systems, software licenses, and services in a majority of states across the
country. Those contracts are typically multi-year contracts and range from tens of
thousands of dollars to over a hundred million dollars, depending on the jurisdiction
and scope of the contract. Given the nature of the U.S. election system and the voting
services industry, Dominion’s contracts have historically been long-term with high
renewal rates. As a direct result of the disinformation campaign, Dominion has
suffered enormous and irreparable economic harm.
228. As illustrated in the examples above, the disinformation campaign
unfairly subjected Dominion to the hatred, contempt, and distrust of tens of millions
of American voters. The elected officials who are Dominion’s actual and potential
customers have received emails, letters, and calls from their constituents demanding
that they cease and avoid contracting with Dominion or using Dominion machines.
129
229. Dominion has suffered harm nationwide. For example, since the
beginning of the disinformation campaign against Dominion, state legislators in
various states in which Dominion has contracts—including California, Colorado,
Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania—are reviewing or have stated their intent
to review and reassess those contracts. They have done so because of pressure from
constituents and donors as a direct result of the lies peddled by Newsmax.
230. For example, prior to the 2020 election, Louisiana had issued Dominion
an “Intent to Award Letter,” noting its intent to accept Dominion’s bid to provide
Louisiana with its voting systems beyond the 2020 election. But in March 2021,
Louisiana retracted that “intent” and issued a “Notice of Cancellation” on the
Request for Proposal on the State’s reassessment and bid process, essentially
reneging on awarding Dominion the $100-million-plus contract with the state.317
231. This cancellation was due to the lies about Dominion. One Louisiana
radio host, Jeff Crouere, declared: “Tell Kyle we don’t want a Dominion voting
machine lawsuit here like they had in Georgia … Call Kyle and tell him to get honest
voting machines.”318 “Kyle” refers to Louisiana’s Republican Secretary of State,
317
Louisiana Ends Search for New Voting Machines Amid Criticism, KATC 3 (Mar. 3, 2021),
https://www.katc.com/news/covering-louisiana/louisiana-ends-search-for-new-voting-machines-
amid-criticism.
318
Sam Karlin, How Louisiana’s Bid for New Voting Machines Fell Apart Amid Baseless Fraud
Allegations, The Advocate (Mar. 7, 2021),
https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/elections/article_fc7c4008-7e14-11eb-
b1d7-3734976f1a47.html.
130
Kyle Ardoin. Secretary Ardoin attributed the changed circumstances to “the damage
to voter confidence done by those who willfully spread misinformation and
disinformation.”319 On July 2, Louisiana passed a bill that reworks “Louisiana’s
method for selecting its next voting system.” Trump supporters in Louisiana have
called “to block Louisiana’s current voting machine vendor, Dominion Voting
Systems, from participating in an open bid process for the new multimillion-dollar
contract” because they “blame” Dominion “for Trump’s loss in key swing states.”320
232. Because Dominion’s contracts are often long-term, the harm to
Dominion will continue to play out over the next years. Nevertheless, since the
November 2020 election, Dominion already has seen further evidence of damage in
addition to the Louisiana contract described above. Indeed, Dominion has not
received numerous contracts as a result of the lies spread by Newsmax and others.
As of July 23, 2021, these contracts were worth a combined $90 million over 53
separate potential contracts. Election officials have even told Dominion that
Dominion is losing business “because of the ‘Dominion’ name.” Together with the
Louisiana contract, these add up to at least $70 million in net profits lost. Even many
rational elections administrators who reject the lies are unwilling to deal with the
319
Id.
320
Melinda DeSlatte, Analysis: Louisiana to Hve New Approach for Voting Machines (July 11,
2021), https://apnews.com/article/technology-government-and-politics-louisiana-voting-election-
2020-0517ded61aa9bd507240eb593ca995a2.
131
political blowback from many of their constituents—blowback that only exists due
to the lies spread about Dominion.
233. On June 8, 2021, as a result of the disinformation campaign, the
Georgia Republican Party Convention passed a resolution calling for an
investigation into Dominion: “1. Formal action shall be taken by the Georgia
General Assembly to appoint an independent investigatory committee not controlled
by the Executive Branch to conduct an investigation into the procurement,
implementation, management and oversight of Dominion Voting machines and their
software.”321 The stated goal of the resolution is “[r]eplacing all Dominion voting
systems with secure hand marked paper ballots which should be scanned and
tabulated using a device that is not connected to the internet, and to do so with the
passage of legislation for the governor to sign prior to the start of the candidate
qualifying beginning March 7, 2022.”322
234. Officials in San Luis Obispo County, California, have also abandoned
Dominion voting machines and have reverted to paper ballots over Dominion
321
Georgia GOP Resolutions Committee to the 2021 Georgia Republican Party Convention, 2021
Convention Resolutions Committee Report, Georgia GOP (last visited July 5, 2021),
https://gagop.org/2021-convention-resolutions-committee-report/.
322
Id.
132
machines as a result of the disinformation campaign. As one official wrote in an
email: “I don't trust Dominion Voting Systems at all.”323
235. These are some examples of the damage Dominion has suffered as a
result of the Newsmax defamation campaign against Dominion. Regardless of the
ultimate outcomes, these examples illustrate the stark difficulty that Dominion will
have in the months and years ahead.
236. The damage to Dominion is not limited to the review and potential
cancellation of Dominion’s contracts, either. Newsmax’s defamatory campaign has
spurred sham audits, which continue to harm Dominion. Arizona is currently in the
midst of a sham audit propagated by people who have bought into the lies pushed by
Newsmax in its race to the bottom with Fox and OAN.
237. Republican chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors,
Jack Sellers, rightly called the audit in Arizona “a grift disguised as an audit.” 324 It
was a total sham for reasons beyond the bias and complete lack of experience of the
private companies performing the audit, including:
o There were no “bipartisan counting boards” set up for the

hand counts, as required.
323
Peter Johnson, SLO County to revert to ‘traditional’ election model following supervisor note,
New Times San Luis Obispo (May 6, 2021), https://www.newtimesslo.com/sanluisobispo/slo-
county-to-revert-to-traditional-election-model-following-supervisor-
vote/Content?oid=11001664.
324
Michael Wines, In Arizona, G.O.P. senators defend their vote review but retract claims of
deleted election data (Mar. 18, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/18/us/arizona-
election.html.
133
o The private group conducting the “audit” implemented
forensic reviews of ballots for watermarks (based on the false
belief that actual ballots in Arizona have watermarks—they
do not), bamboo fibers (based on the false belief that 40,000
ballots were flown in from China and would therefore have
bamboo fibers in them), and for folds or other markings (on
the false belief that if a ballot has a fold or a food or coffee
stain, it is invalid).
o The group falsely claimed that “Maricopa County deleted a

directory full of election databases from the 2020 election
cycle days before the election equipment was delivered to the
audit,” when in fact the group was just too incompetent to
“locate files on a copy they made of the County’s server.”
o The group claimed that the “chain of custody of ballots” had
been broken, when in fact the Republican former Arizona
Secretary of State Ken Bennett had approved the actual Chain
of Custody Document that demonstrated it had never been
broken.
o Vote counters were given blue pens—which “can be read by

ballot marking devices and could be conceivably used to ruin
or falsify ballots”—to mark ballots rather than red pens,
breaking a cardinal rule of election audits that Cyber Ninjas’
head Doug Logan did not know.
o The group left security gates and ballots unattended and

brought unauthorized pens and cell phones near the ballot
counting areas.
o The group refused to publicly disclose its procedures for

ensuring voter privacy, despite being ordered by a Maricopa
County Superior Court to do so.325
325
See Ralph Neas et al., How the Arizona Senate Audit in Maricopa County Is an Assault on
Voting Rights, Century Foundation (July 1, 2021), https://tcf.org/content/report/arizona-senate-
audit-maricopa-county-assault-voting-rights/?session=1.
134
238. Unsurprisingly, actual Republican and independent election experts
have completely discredited the audit as a sham. For example, former Kentucky
Republican Secretary of State Trey Grayson and Dr. Barry C. Burden of the
Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison—both “eminent
election experts”—declared as follows:
The ongoing review of ballots from the November 2020 general

election in Maricopa County as ordered by the Arizona State
Senate and executed by their inexperienced, unqualified
contractor, Cyber Ninjas, does not meet the standards of a proper
election recount or audit. Although the scope of the undertaking
is notable, the private firms conducting it are ill-equipped to
conduct it successfully and produce meaningful findings about
the 2020 election. In contrast to official procedures in Arizona
and best practices around the country, the Cyber Ninjas review
suffers from a variety of maladies: uncompetitive contracting, a
lack of impartiality and partisan balance, a faulty ballot review
process, inconsistency in procedures, an unacceptably high level
of error built into the process, and insufficient security. A general
lack of transparency and communication also makes it difficult
to evaluate the review fully as one would an official recount or
audit, and it undermines rather than establishes confidence in the
election system and the review itself. Because it lacks the
essential elements of a bona fide post-election analysis, the
review currently underway in Maricopa County will not produce
findings that should be trusted.326
239. And most recently, an independent analysis by the Associated Press
determined that “out of more than 3 million ballots cast in last year’s presidential
326
DR. BARRY C. BURDEN & SEC’Y TREY GRAYSON, STATES UNITED DEMOCRACY CTR., REPORT
ON THE CYBER NINJAS REVIEW OF THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL AND U.S. SENATORIAL ELECTIONS IN
MARICOPA COUNTY, ARIZONA (June 22, 2021), https://statesuniteddemocracy.org/wp-
content/uploads/2021/06/6.22.21-SUDC-Report-re-Cyber-Ninjas-Review-FINAL.pdf.
135
election” in Arizona, the “Arizona county election officials have identified fewer
than 200 cases of potential voter fraud,” only four of which “have led to charges”—
“two involved Democratic voters and two involved Republicans”—and “No
person’s vote was counted twice.”327 These cases had nothing to do with alleged
voting machine fraud.
240. Regardless of the fact that it is a sham audit, the continuing coverage of
it reinforces the harm and emphasizes how Dominion will forever be tainted with
false claims of fraud. A recent article noted that an Arizona legislator supporting the
sham audit was “exploring alternatives to Dominion voting machines.” 328 “‘There’s
a lot of push nationally to get rid of the machines because people feel like they can
be manipulated.’”329 Indeed, in many circles, the word “Dominion” is now falsely
associated with election fraud, and the sustained attack on Dominion now means that
people falsely relate even general references to “election fraud” or similar phrases
to Dominion. Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers recently tweeted calling for
“solitary confinement cells” for “the execs at the fraud machine company”:
327
Bob Christie & Christina A. Cassidy, Ap: Few AZ Voter Fraud Cases, Discreditng Trump’s
Claims, Associated Press (July 16, 2021), https://apnews.com/article/business-government-and-
politics-arizona-election-2020-e6158cd1b0c6442716064e6791b4c6fc.
328
Kyra Haas, Some lawmakers want to eliminate voting machines, AZ Capitol Times (Jun. 3,
2021), https://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2021/06/03/some-lawmakers-want-to-eliminate-voting-
machines/.
329
Id.
136
330
241. As the County Recorder in Maricopa County, Arizona said,
“‘[O]rdinary people, the ones who are showing up on a Wednesday night at a
political meeting, I believe they really believe it. And that’s super sad.’” 331 He also
stated: “We can’t indulge these insane lies any longer. As a party. As a state. As a
country.”332
242. Nevertheless, across the country, other jurisdictions are attempting to
pursue their own sham audits. For example, Fulton County, Pennsylvania—which
Trump won by an “almost seven-to-one” margin over Biden—hired Wake TSI, one
of the same technology companies used in Maricopa County with virtually no
election auditing experience, to conduct a sham audit of Fulton County ballots.333 As
a result of this sham audit, Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State was forced “to
330
Wendy Rogers (@WendyRogersAZ), Twitter (Aug. 2, 2021, 5:40 PM),
https://twitter.com/wendyrogersaz/status/1422326523177148416?s=21.
331
Josh Dawsey & Rosalind S. Helderman, Trump has grown increasingly consumed with ballot
audits as he pushes falsehood that election was stolen, Wash. Post (June 2, 2012, 6:50 PM)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-2020-election-audits/2021/06/02/95fd3004-
c2ec-11eb-8c34-f8095f2dc445_story.html.
332
Id.
333
Marc Levy & Mark Scolforo, Pennsylvania Decertifies County’s Voting System after Audit,
Associated Press (July 21, 2021), https://apnews.com/article/technology-joe-biden-business-
government-and-politics-pennsylvania-93c5f0b03167971d4dc5919e68949c51.
137
decertify” the Dominion machines leased by the County because “the inspection
violated state law … was done in a manner that ‘was not transparent or bipartisan’
and the firm had ‘no knowledge or expertise in election technology.’” 334
243. In late July 2021, in a Georgia county—Bibb County—a rally was held
to begin a sham audit in Georgia. Signs said: “Ditch Dominion.” The Bibb County
Party Chair “wants to know if [Georgia Secretary of State] Raffensperger will
support an investigation into Dominion Voting.”335
244. In short, Dominion has now become part of both national- and state-
level election fraud narratives at Dominion’s great expense. Political candidates are
running campaign platforms based on the falsities that Newsmax published and
republished.336 And Dominion’s name has become unfairly and inaccurately
334
Id.
335
Ariel Schiller, Raffensperger hosts meet and greet in Roberta, Bibb County GOP Protests, 41
NBC (July 22, 2021), https://www.41nbc.com/raffensperger-hosts-meet-and-greet-in-roberta-
bibb-county-gop-protests/.
336
Austin Chenge (@AustinChenge), Twitter (Feb. 2, 2021, 11:21 AM),
https://twitter.com/AustinChenge/status/1356638816921128962/photo/1.
138
tarnished as synonymous with fraud. Dominion is now so closely and inaccurately
tied to the false claims of election fraud that even general references to “election
fraud,” a “rigged election,” or similar statements—including by Newsmax—
reinforce the false narrative pushed by Newsmax, and that Newsmax continues to
push.
245. As a result of the radioactive falsehoods spread by Newsmax, elected
officials, insurers, and potential investors have been deterred from dealing with
Dominion, putting Dominion’s contracts in more than two dozen states and hundreds
of counties and municipalities at risk and significantly hampering Dominion’s ability
to win new contracts. Even landlords are refusing to work with Dominion. In early
August 2021, Dominion was told by a prospective commercial landlord that the
landlord would not discuss renting to Dominion, citing security concerns relating to
the election lies.
246. Additionally, based on Dominion’s historic financial track record,
contract pipeline, retention and renewal rates, and new business capture rates, as
well as the nature, severity, pervasiveness, and permanence of the viral
disinformation campaign, conservative projections show lost profits from existing
customers of over $463 million and from potential new customers of over $68
million. In addition, the viral disinformation campaign has irreparably damaged
Dominion. It has decimated Dominion’s goodwill and destroyed the enterprise value
139
of a business that was worth potentially more than $1 billion (based on updated
EBITDA and multipliers of comparable companies) before the viral disinformation
campaign.
COUNT ONE – DEFAMATION PER SE

247. Dominion repeats and re-alleges each of the foregoing paragraphs as if
set forth fully herein.
248. Newsmax published the following false and defamatory statements of
fact about Dominion, including by and through Newsmax’s own agents making the
statements themselves; by intentionally providing a platform for guests to appear on
Newsmax programming who Newsmax knew would make defamatory statements
on the air and by affirming, endorsing, repeating, and agreeing with the statements
of guests on their shows; and by republishing the statements on the air, Newsmax’s
websites, Newsmax’s social media accounts, and Newsmax’s other digital platforms
and subscription services after the live broadcasts had aired:
(a) On November 10, 2020, Newsmax’s White House Correspondent

Emerald Robinson tweeted the false statement that “All crooked roads
lead to Dominion Voting Systems” in direct response to her retweet of
the false statement, “Little tidbit: Smartmatic is the electronic voting
systems company that has been used in Venezuela since 2004. Its name
is synonymous with fraud for most Venezuelans. Since 2009,
Smartmatic has been a subsidiary of Dominion.”337
337
Emerald Robinson (@EmeraldRobinson), Twitter (Nov. 10, 2020, 10:37 AM),
https://twitter.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1326232608137752576 (Ex. 11).
140
(b) On the November 16, 2020 broadcast of Greg Kelly Reports in a
segment titled “Democracy or Dominion,” which Newsmax broadcast
live on television on the Newsmax TV channel, and republished on
Newsmax’s YouTube channel, Newsmax’s Facebook account, and
Newsmax’s Twitter account, Newsmax made, endorsed, and adopted
the following false statements:
Greg Kelly: . . . I think this country, this planet, could be in for the
awakening of the millennium, something that we haven’t seen in
thousands of years, as this election, the truth is finally told. . . . Folks,
I think we will be in for the shock of our lifetime this is going to be
wild; and the evidence is slowly emerging. Yes, I would like to have
seen it yesterday; but the president has some very, very smart
lawyers. One of my favorites, Sidney Powell. She helped Michael
Flynn beat the travesty of a case that was lodged against him. She’s
a former federal prosecutor. And you tell me, does she -- seem like
she's speaking the truth? She spoke to Maria Bartiromo over the
weekend.
Sidney Powell: President Trump won by not just hundreds of

thousands of votes, but by millions of votes, that were shifted by the
software that was designed expressly for that purpose. . . . It was
exported internationally for profit by the people that are behind
Smartmatic and Dominion. They did this on purpose. It was
calculated. They’ve done it before. We have evidence from 2016 in
141
California. We have so much evidence, I feel like it’s coming in
through a fire hose.
Kelly: I believe her. And I don’t believe the critics and the
naysayers. . . .
Kelly: Talking about Dominion. This company, the software; there

are a lot of concerns. And what she’s saying, I’m believing. Big
problems, vulnerabilities, votes that can be switched. It happened
before in South Carolina. And Sidney Powell is right . . . .338
(c) On the November 16, 2020 broadcast of Greg Kelly Reports, Newsmax
and Newsmax anchor Greg Kelly hosted Dick Morris and made,
endorsed, and adopted the following false statements:
Dick Morris: . . . I believe that this election was absolutely stolen.
338
Greg Kelly Reports, Newsmax (Nov. 16, 2020),
334933661efd?token=77d8b679-c7d2-4315-9468-5a13188bd472 (Ex. 12); Newsmax TV, They
need to get a grip | Greg Kelly, YouTube (Nov. 16, 2020),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ5K3TMTNg0; Newsmax, They Need to Get a Grip | Greg
Kelly, Facebook (Nov. 16, 2020),
https://www.facebook.com/newsmax/videos/491524035097426; Newsmax (@newsmax), Twitter
(Nov. 16, 2020, 5:37 PM), https://twitter.com/newsmax/status/1328512611307171840.
142
Greg Kelly: . . . I agree with you, by the way. . . .
Morris: . . . You asked me if I was confident that it had been stolen.
I certainly am, and I think we have to fight and fight and fight to get
the truth out here about Dominion and about the recounts. . . .339
(d) On the November 16, 2020 broadcast of National Report, which

Newsmax broadcast live on television on the Newsmax TV channel,
and republished on Newsmax’s Facebook account and Instagram
account, Newsmax made, endorsed, and adopted the following false
statements:
Sidney Powell: We’re fixing to overturn the results of the election

in multiple states. And President Trump won by, not just hundreds
of thousands of votes, but by millions of votes, that were shifted by
this software that was designed expressly for that purpose. We have
sworn witness testimony of why the software was designed; it was
designed to rig elections.
...
Rechenberg (Newsmax host): And Joe, I’ll go back to you then, too,
because it wasn’t just the observers staying out of the counting area,
it was also this Dominion voting service, this -- this technology here.
What have you researched about that, and what’s the Trump legal
team doing in regards to Dominion?
DiGenova: Well, the bottom line about Dominion is -- is that it is a
suspect company. . . . It has an origin in Venezuela with friends of
Hugo Chavez. The company that runs it now has the counting done
overseas in Germany and Barcelona.340
339
Greg Kelly Reports, Dick Morris to Newsmax TV: Confident Election Stolen, Not About Fixing
It, Newsmax (Nov. 16, 2020), https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/dick-morris-election-
stolen-dominion/2020/11/16/id/997323/ (Ex. 13)
340
https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/b59c14f5-5d99-49d7-8209-
c7da11b46ebb?token=1cfbe59c-bc7e-4386-9540-41671812f9bd (Ex. 16); Newsmax, President
Trump continues to not concede | Report, Facebook (Nov. 16, 2020),
(Nov. 16, 2020), https://www.instagram.com/p/CHqnhfnHVk3/.
143
(e) On the November 17, 2020 broadcast of American Agenda, which
Newsmax made, endorsed, and adopted the following false statements:
Heather Childers: . . . you know, everyone saw the statement that

came out allegedly from the DHS that said this was the safest
election ever, I think, in the history of elections. But what people did
not know, I didn’t realize, is sitting on that board of the Department
of Homeland Security, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security
Agency, was, in fact, Dominion and Smartmatic.
Dick Morris: Right, that’s true. And also remember, Dominion is a

-- kind of a shell company. The real owners, the real motivators of
Dominion are the Chinese Communist Party and two Chavez
supporters in Venezuela, who shortly after Chavez seized power,
invented the Dominion Voting System as a method of stealing
elections in Venezuela. And as a result, they were kicked out of
Venezuela, Argentina, and a whole host of other countries. . . .
Bob Sellers: . . . By the way, folks, you can get Dick’s up-to-the-
minute news by going to DickMorris.com, subscribing free.341
(f) On the November 17, 2020 broadcast of the National Report with
Emma Rechenberg, which Newsmax broadcast live on television on the
Newsmax TV channel, Newsmax made, endorsed, and adopted the
following false statements:
Emma Rechenberg: If you don’t mind, kind of break down how

you’re connected to this Dominion machine voting system and why
you have some concerns about it. . . .
Patrick Byrne: . . . This election was hacked. This election was
hacked. The outcome has been rigged. I did not vote for Trump. I’m
a small L libertarian, never voted Republican or Democrat for
president in my life. I’m saying this election was rigged. I’m a CEO
who built a $2 billion tech company. I don’t mean to sound like I’m
beating my chest. I was national entrepreneur of the year, you go
back a decade, for building a $2 billion tech company, Overstock. I
341
American Agenda, Newsmax (Nov. 16, 2020),
https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/a65f03d0-8b0f-4768-8d61-
12aaff4e6051?token=77d8b679-c7d2-4315-9468-5a13188bd472 (Ex. 15).
144
know what I’m talking about. Yeah, I’m also a Ph.D. from Stanford
and a Marshall scholar besides. I’m putting all that credibility on the
line. This election was hacked, the outcome was rigged and should
be completely ignored or discounted, I mean, through the court
system. The courts should throw it out. . . . How I know this is this.
Rechenberg: Right. You sound like Trump’s legal team right now,
so we’re all on the same page. You sound like what their claims are
as well, and clearly you have the experience and the expertise in
regards to maybe shedding some light on how you know that to be
true, yeah.
Byrne: Okay. Here’s how I know that. I’m backing -- I have the data
incidentally. I have the data, the electronics, everything. I have been
backing and supporting some cyber security experts, a number of
different groups. This is how it came about. In 2018, the Dallas
election had irregularities. The Texas state government hired an elite
cyber security company to go in and study what had happened in
2018, and they reverse engineered it. And when you reverse
engineer something, that’s when you take the final product and you
get a bunch of people to study and they break it apart and figure out
how you built it so they can go copy it. These guys reverse
engineered the 2018 Dallas irregularities which turned out to be a
hack. Dominion ran it. It was Dominion’s technology that ran it. . . .
...
. . . I’m putting my -- I was a Marshall scholar, a Ph.D. from

Stanford. . . . I built a $2 billion company. I’m putting it all on the
line. This entire election was hacked. It’s far easier to have hacked
this than a PayPal or your Venmo account.
Rechenberg: Sure. I mean, we’ve seen hacks on major social media

outlets before in this year alone. My mind goes to Twitter. Are you
in touch with the Trump campaign, and would you advise when they
are pursuing these lawsuits specifically about Dominion, that they
would bring on board someone who would be able to prove that they
could, in fact, change votes for Donald Trump to Joe Biden? Would
that be provable in court if you brought on the right person?
Byrne: Absolutely provable. We have the data. We have the data.
145
You do not have to worry. The only question is how quickly can the
process intake versus how quickly the goons are trying to shut down
the process so they can seal this all in cement. Now, I’m saying this
again. I did not vote for Mr. Trump. I respect him. He got elected
President. He’s -- so this isn’t a Trump supporter coming out and
saying this. I’m a tech CEO, national entrepreneur of the year for
building a tech company, if you go back about -- Ernst and Young
about 10 years ago. I know what I’m talking about, and this thing is
child’s play to have beaten. It’s embarrassing. And Trump is
actually correct, his campaign is correct.
Rechenberg: Have they reached out to you?
Byrne: I’m one step ahead of the sheriffs myself because of the fact
that I’ve come out about some things, so I don’t work for them,
anything like that. I’m not a donor to them, but I’ve been using my
own resources to unscramble this and I’m trying to feed it into the
system. Yes, the system is taking it in. They have their other sources,
but we have all the goods, they’re absolutely correct.
Rechenberg: And do you believe it was millions of votes that were

again flipped from Donald Trump to Joe Biden?
Byrne: Well, the main event is not the total number of millions. It
was not widespread deep. It was narrow and deep. It was very
strategic.
Rechenberg: In select states, you’re saying?
Byrne: Select counties.
Rechenberg: Okay.
Byrne: Five counties that really matter, and they realize if you hack
these five – well, they’re very -- a small number of places, if you
defeated the election you could flip the states and you could flip
from that flip the electoral college. And how it was done -- I mean
people can see this in news they already know if you think about
this. Doesn’t it seem a little odd that Mr. Biden was behind in states,
you know, 600,000 votes, and then he has this come from behind
victory and wins by 14,000?
146
Rechenberg: I know. That’s what so many people are asking. That
is what a lot of people are asking.
Byrne: 800,000.342
(g) On the November 17, 2020 broadcast of Greg Kelly Reports, which
and republished on Newsmax’s YouTube account, Newsmax made,
Powell: . . . we know Dominion has a long history of rigging
elections. That’s what it was created to do to begin with. . . . We’ve
got increasingly mounting evidence of significant fraud across
multiple states that cast in the question the validity of the elections
in every swing state; including Nevada and Arizona and Michigan,
Wisconsin, Georgia. And it went beyond that, too.
Kelly: You know regarding Dominion. . . .
Powell: And worse than that it had a backdoor so it could be
manipulated by anyone who could access it through that backdoor.
And that was a deliberate feature the affidavit of the young military
officer we provided yesterday to the public explains how it was
created for that very purpose, so Maduro -- I mean, so Hugo Chavez
would never lose another election. And he did not after that software
was created. He won every single election. And then they exported
it to Argentina, and other countries in South America, and then they
brought it here. And they – it’s a foreign company no matter how
you look at it. So they’ve already violated the President’s order
against foreign interference in our elections. Our votes were actually
eventually counted in Barcelona, Spain or Frankfurt, Germany on
foreign servers. It’s absolutely stunning. And what’s really stunning
is the effort that is being mounted against getting the truth out on
this. But you have to realize that every tech company, every media
company, every social media company, scads of globalist
corporations have been doing business in countries with these
dictators that have been installed through this rigged election system
342
https://www.deepcapture.com/2020/11/newsmaxtv-breaks-cone-of-silence-millions-hear-story-
there-first/ (Ex. 16).
147
for decades. The corruption is actually worldwide in [sic] going to
upset a countless number of elections across this country and -- and
around the world.
Kelly: All right.
Powell: So we need to do that to get rid of the corruption.

Kelly: It does make a lot of sense now. . .
Powell: . . . We can -- got the evidence from the word -- the own
mouths of the guy who founded the company. I haven't even had
a chance to get that out to the public yet, but they admit -- the
founder of the company admits, he can change a million votes no
problem at all.
Kelly: The founder of Dominion admitted a long time ago, recently
to you, can -- tell us more, please.
Powell: Publicly. I will -- I will tweet out the video later, and I’ll
tag you in it.
Kelly: Please do. @GregKellyUSA if you don’t mind. . . .
...
Powell: . . . I think we’ll find he had at least 80 million votes. The

only reason the glitches happened in the system was because he was
so -- he had so far many more votes than they had calculated in
advance, their algorithms wouldn’t perform the functions they had
originally performed or were set to perform. They couldn’t make up
the vote count he had gotten so many hundreds of thousands more
than they planned. So that’s when they had to stop the counting and
come up with a way to back fill the votes or destroy votes for Trump
while they fabricated votes for Biden.
Kelly: Sidney Powell, who is a former federal prosecutor, by the

way, spent ten years working for the government. Good luck. And
by the way, very quickly, you have evidence, it’s coming in fast.
There is a reason for not making public, correct? I mean, you’re
going to have a hostile media picking it apart, possibly trying to
destroy your case before you can even make it; is that part of your
148
thinking? Very briefly, if you don’t mind.
...
Kelly: Well, millions are praying for you and with you. And find her
on Twitter, the least we can do. SidneyPowell1. @SidneyPowell1,
the numeral one. We appreciate it so much. Good luck, and please
stay safe.343
(h) On the November 17, 2020 broadcast of Wake Up America, which

and republished on Newsmax’s Twitter account, Newsmax made,
Emerald Robinson: . . . [I]n the last 24 hours she has released a very
long detailed whistleblower statement that she says is by a high-
ranking military official with firsthand knowledge of Dominion
Voting Systems, and how they can be misused. In the statement the
whistleblower describes the evolution of Dominion Voting
machines and Smartmatic software. Smartmatic software is what
was used by Hugo Chavez and his successor to fix elections in
Venezuela. This whistleblower said that the software was -- was
developed in conjunction with Chavez in order to appease his
desires to manipulate the vote in Venezuela in a way that could not
be detected. The whistleblower go to -- went on to describe in detail
his firsthand experience watching the votes being manipulated in
Venezuela in their 2013 presidential elections. He goes on to say
that the Smartmatic software is -- that all the vote tabulating
machines, including Dominion Voting machines, uses a derivative
or a descendant of Smartmatic software saying that it’s in the DNA
of every software program used by every voting machine. In the
statement he says quote: “The fact that the voting machine displays
a voting result that the voter intends and then prints out a paper ballot
which reflects that change does not matter. It is the software that
counts the digitized vote and reports the results. The software itself
is the one that changes the information electronically to the result
that the operator of the software and vote counting system intends
to produce that counts. He says that he came forward because he’s
343
Newsmax TV, Greg Kelly Reports, Major Developments in Key States | Sidney Powell,
YouTube (Nov. 17, 2020), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMDtOtGFrYg (Ex. 17).
149
concerned about what he’s seeing in the 2020 presidential election
saying, quote: “The circumstances and events are eerily reminiscent
of what happened with Smartmatic software electronically changing
votes in the 2013 presidential election in Venezuela.” He describes
what he saw on election night in five key, battleground states using
Dominion Voting Systems, that includes Georgia, where the vote
count was stopped and went offline for several hours when President
Trump was ahead in the vote; when they came back online, later in
the wee hours of the morning, then Joe Biden had taken the lead
significantly.344
(i) On the November 19, 2020 broadcast of Stinchfield, which Newsmax

broadcast live on television on the Newsmax TV channel, Newsmax
made, endorsed, and adopted the following false statements:
Sidney Powell: . . . votes from President Trump and flipped them to
President Biden; which we might never uncovered had the votes for
President Trump not been so overwhelming in so many of these
states that it broke the algorithm that have been plugged into the
system, and that’s what caused them to have to shut down.
Grant Stinchfield: This is unbelievable. That’s President Trump’s

attorney, Sidney Powell, laying out evidence that a corrupt
algorithm in the Dominion Voting System starts switching votes
from President Trump to Biden on election night, and it’s such a
massive scale it crashes the system. That’s when we see the
(inaudible) them all stop counting. This is why multiple states
stopped counting ballots in the middle of the night, she says. But she
also says the states, what they did afterwards, was absolutely
shocking.
Powell: That’s when they came in the back door with all the mail-in
-- mail-in ballots, many of which they had actually fabricated. Some
were on pristine paper with identically matching perfect circled dots
for Mr. Biden; others were shoved in, in batches. They’re always
344
Wake Up America, Newsmax (Nov. 17, 2020),
https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/c5209c63-8029-4239-afa9-
930a7a6a93a4?token=1cfbe59c-bc7e-4386-9540-41671812f9bd (Ex. 18); Newsmax
(@newsmax), Twitter (Nov. 17, 2020, 7:40 am),
150
put in a certain number of batches, and people would rerun the same
batch. This corresponds to our statistical evidence that shows
incredible spikes in the vote counts at particular times.
Stinchfield: So she says the algorithm was designed to crash

allowing these states to shut down and usher in thousands of fake
ballots for Biden. It all makes sense now, if this is true, right? And
she says it proves all the research that our investigative unit here
on Stinchfield has been uncovering. . . . 345
...
Stinchfield: … The bottom line is, the media is going to ignore all
this anyway. Not us though. That’s Jenna Ellis, of course, ripping
into the media naysayers who been hounding the president’s
campaign for proof of widespread voter fraud. Today the campaign,
as we said, dropped a bomb on the left detailing some of the
evidence they have been able to compile so far and it is
damning. . . .346
345
346
Stinchfield, Ellis: We Have the Evidence, Newsmax (Nov. 19, 2020),
https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/f1bc310f-e3ff-40b5-a2cd-
7be3339bdad8?token=eac1ac75-b0a8-4076-8613-ae72593523fd (Ex. 20).
151
(j) On the November 19, 2020 broadcast of Chris Salcedo Show, which
Grant Stinchfield: . . . but I think if you’re going to prove fraud, the

electronic pathway to that is the way you’re going to have to do it,
and it may be the most simple way to do it. We’ve been on the
forefront on our show Stinchfield of going into the Dominion Voting
Systems. . .
Chris Salcedo: . . . Stinchfield has been very good on the forefront
of exploring the Dominion Voting Machines, Salcedo Show has
been exploring and trying to sound the alarm bells for -- for months
now, about how our votes are tabulated outside the country. Rudy
Giuliani spoke on this today. And -- and just listen to him lay this
out. I -- my jaw dropped because it was -- A, it was validation from
what we’ve been reporting. And B, to hear Rudy Giuliani talking
about it was just amazing. Listen.
Rudy Giuliani: . . . you should be more astounded by the fact that

our votes are counted in Germany and in Spain by a company owned
by affiliates of Chavez and Maduro. . . .
Salcedo: . . . number two -- I mean, the fact they were able to lay out
that case, Grant, was just -- jaw dropping to me.
Stinchfield: . . . we saw, Chris that these votes had gone through a
server in Frankfurt, Germany. I know there was a lot of talk about
152
what happened to these servers in Frankfurt, Germany; what’s
confirmed and what’s not. But what I can tell you is the people that
I’ve talked to absolutely proved that votes were going from certain
states through this server. And lo and behold, we put up the IP
address of that Frankfurt server, the next day, after Stinchfield aired
that, the server was taken offline, Chris. You can't even find it
anymore.347
(k) On the November 20, 2020 broadcast of The Howie Carr Show, which
Sidney Powell: . . . a lot of evidence of fraud is going to be coming

out next week. I’ve got just more than I can say grace over right now
coming in every day. It only gets worse and worse. This was very
widespread. Very deliberate. Very well-funded. . . .
...
Powell: Yeah, we have a lot of extremely solid evidence. It’s beyond

impressive and absolutely terrifying.
...
Howie Carr: So how many fraudulent votes do you think that Joe
Biden had on his side . . . of the slate?
Powell: Probably at least ten million.
Carr: Ten million fraudulent votes?
Carr: So did -- did most of these votes disappear for the President
and appear for Joe Biden in the -- in those states that are still being
fought over or -- or did this go on -- how many states did this go on
in?
Powell: I think the – well, there are several ways that they did this.
347
The Chris Salcedo Show, Changing Votes Using Dominion Software, Newsmax (Nov. 20,
2020), https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/cd83634c-80a4-420e-8712-
d86044d6a148?token=53eea26c-97c5-4908-b3b7-29d8443e3682 (Ex. 21).
153
One was an algorithm that I believe they ran nationwide, but I can’t
say that for sure yet, because we haven’t had the time to run the data
nationwide. But that would typically be the way it would be done.
And certainly make it less apparent that it had been done in any one
place if they ran the algorithm consistently across the country. So,
for example, they can dial it -- literally dial it -- to every time there
was a vote for Trump or -- that it be weighted at 0.75, and every vote
for Biden be weighted at 1.25. . . . So I don't think any state was safe
from it, despite the best efforts of some not to use the Dominion
Voting Systems which were clearly fraudulently created and sold.
...
Powell: . . . and then the other thing they did, where they had the
real problem, was Trump won so overwhelmingly in all the states
that had to cut off their machines, that they had to cut off their
machines for hours to go in and backfill additional votes and move
things around even more to make sure that Biden won. . . . We found
. . . pristine ballots with only a computer-made dot for Biden, and
all of them were alike. They could just stick those in the machine in
batches and run them through repeatedly and count, you know,
hundreds of thousands of votes that way. There’s a drag-and-drop
feature to take Trump votes and put them in a trash can or assign
them to a third-party candidate or move them from a third-party
candidate to Biden. I mean, I think they did absolutely everything.
And we also have information that one of the high people in
Dominion Voting Systems went to Detroit to operate the system
himself there that night at the -- the Detroit center.
...
Carr: Let me ask about this guy Eric Coomer. He’s -- I think he --
he works for Dominion, he’s – he’s Berkeley, California University
of California grad. He’s the one who was allegedly -- there’s a -- he
was on a conference call or something, a Zoom, with -- with Antifa
and he said, supposedly: Don't worry about Trump, I’ve already --
I’ve already made sure he’s going to lose the election. . . is that true,
for -- for starters . . . ?
Powell: Yes.
154
Carr: It’s true? You have that . . . ?
Powell: It’s true. Yeah, we -- we have an affidavit to that effect and
we have . . . I think we have a copy of the call.
...
Powell: And also Dominion has shuttered up both of their offices in

Canada where they shared an office floor with a George Soros
entity. . . . And they have moved their office in Denver. And, of
course, I’m sure there was a lot of document shredding and things,
quote, “lost,” end quote, in that process. You know, the FBI should
have moved on all of this immediately; all of the voting machines
should have already been impounded. The software should have
been secured and examined. . . .
...
Powell: . . . in the meantime we will be producing additional
evidence to help the public understand the breadth and depth of this
international, frankly criminal conduct; and it will also reflect
substantial foreign interference in our election.
Carr: Sidney Powell . . . Including China, correct?

Powell: Yeah. China, Iran, Serbia, Lichtenstein. Multiple places.348
(l) On a November 21, 2020 broadcast interview, which Newsmax
broadcast live on television on the Newsmax TV channel, and
republished on its YouTube account, Newsmax made, endorsed, and
adopted the following false statements:
Rob Schmitt: . . .you know, if -- if you want to -- if you want to shut

the media up, and they say that you guys have nothing; when will
you have some of the stuff that’s -- that’s this hard core evidence in
paper and writing?
Sidney Powell: Well, frankly, the affidavits we’ve already

introduced are hard core evidence. . . They’re first-hand testimony
of witnesses who saw how and why the system was created and how
348
ChooseAmericaNow, The Howie Carr Show, Howie Carr Show – Sidney Powell Interview
(11/20/20), YouTube (Nov. 20, 2020), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jybq5fhfo0c (Ex. 21).
155
it worked to accomplish the objective for Hugo Chavez. . . . We’ve
got all kinds of different evidence. And then we’ve the statistical
and mathematical evidence that’s absolutely irrefutable. . . . And
we’ve got other testimonial evidence that appears to be coming in
now to indicate the Democrats literally added 35,000 votes to every
Democratic candidate to begin with.
...
Powell: . . . frankly, with everything we’ve got, these should be
criminal prosecutions at a -- at a significant level for fraud and
conspiracy to defraud . . . provable beyond a reasonable doubt.
There are hundreds of thousands of people in our criminal system
right now in prison who were convicted on far less evidence of guilt
than we have here.
...
Powell: . . . and they can see it. Everybody saw it on election night.
They saw votes being subtracted from President Trump and
appearing on the Biden side of the scale. And that’s exactly what
this Dominion System was designed to do. And we have . . .
eyewitness testimony to its entire creation for that very purpose.
...
Schmitt: I mean how big of a -- you know, if -- if this happened,
how big of a conspiracy, how many people would have had to been
in on something like this?
Powell: Oh gosh. Probably thousands, including the people running

the machines at each of the polls -- polling centers. We know, for
example, that one of the higher ups of Dominion went to Detroit the
night of the election to -- to handle things himself. And we also have
evidence that there were any number of VPN lines open to the
internet for foreign actors to be meddling in it.
...
Powell: . . . our key -- our witness from Venezuela who saw it all
created and how it worked, said that he knew as soon as the
machines were turned off in those key states, it was because we the
156
people in voting Trump -- and voting for Trump in a landslide
election, had essentially broken the algorithm that had been
preprogrammed into the machine. . . .
...
Powell: . . . Georgia’s probably going to be the first state I am going

to blow up and -- and Mr. Kemp and the Secretary of State need to
go with it, because they’re in on the Dominion scam with their last-
minute purchase or award of a contract to Dominion of $100 million.
The State Bureau of Investigation for Georgia ought to be looking
into financial benefits received by Mr. Kemp and -- and the
Secretary of State’s family about that time. And another benefit,
Dominion was created to award, is what I would call, election
insurance. That’s why Hugo Chavez had it created in the first place.
..
...
Powell: . . . And it looks like it -- thirty-five thousand votes were

added to every democratic candidate.349
(m) On the November 23, 2020 broadcast of The Benny Report, which
and republished to Newsmax’s YouTube account and Twitter account,
Benny Johnson: Finally, we get to Dominion Voting Systems. . . .
Their voting systems are used in Venezuela. And their votes are
counted off of American soil; if that tells you anything. . . .350
(n) On the December 7, 2020 broadcast of Greg Kelly Reports, which

349
Newsmax, Sidney Powell: It Will Be BIBLICAL, YouTube (Nov. 21, 2020),
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y68pEknYyCM?rel=0&start=0 (Ex. 23).
350
The Benny Report, Newsmax (Nov. 21, 2020),
https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/7bff6161-b305-411e-9b6f-
fd894a3e1002?token=37f52d99-127d-4b48-b8dc-e5e99babfaaa (Ex. 24); Newsmax TV, You
have every right to be suspicious / Benny Johnson, YouTube (Nov. 23, 2020, 4:19 PM),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j88gkKbjoo; Newsmax (@newsmax), Twitter (Nov. 21,
2020, 6:08 PM), https://twitter.com/newsmax/status/1330332248906866693.
157
Greg Kelly: . . . Gosh, we’re pulling for you. As you know, this is
an opinion show and we’re on your side. How are you holding up,
first of all?
...
Kelly: . . .You’re still focused primarily on the Dominion Voting

machines and the issues on a technical basis, correct?
Sidney Powell: . . . yes, we focused also on the systematic problem

with the Dominion machines. We have an expert who has identified
that the votes for Biden was 5% overall greater wherever there were
Dominion machines than any of the other votes. That is essentially
the amount of votes that it can flip and brag about being able to flip.
We know from one of our -- one of our witnesses that these
machines were created in Venezuela, and the entire process was
started there to make sure Mr. Chavez won every election. And then,
of course, the Wall Street Journal, I think, today featured
Venezuela’s rigged election for Maduro. This is the same
technology. The same equipment. It came out of Venezuela to be
used here. I would imagine our three letter agencies have a role in
it. We’re essentially fighting the entire globalist elite power
structure that wants to control the world for their own financial
benefit. . . .
Kelly: You know, two years ago, I would have said that sounds
crazy; but after all that’s happened, I think you’re absolutely right.
I think this is the way the world works. By the way, I do want to ask
you about the servers overseas. Dominion reportedly has all kinds
of internet connections and -- for whatever reason they were
counting the votes in places like Spain and Germany. You have seen
the reports, maybe you know firsthand that -- you know, some of
these servers may or may not have been seized. Overseas equipment
of Dominion taken possession of by forces friendly to the United
States. Do you know anything about that?
Powell: . . . The Dominion system should never have been allowed
in this country. They are internationally known. Our votes were
158
counted in Frankfurt, Germany, and altered in Barcelona, Spain, and
other places. We simply cannot allow that as the United States of
America. . . . 351
(o) On the December 14, 2020 news broadcast, which was broadcast live
on the Newsmax TV channel, Newsmax made, endorsed, and adopted
the following false statements:
Dick Morris: . . . Bear in mind, Dominion was invented by people

working for Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan dictator after he, quote,
“lost” an election. And he then decided to, quote, “win” the election
by fixing the voting machines. And he expressly had them designed
-- it's written in the specs -- that this should be so votes can be altered
and not be traced. . . . secondly, they’re about to do the same damn
thing on January 5th with the same machines and the same result,
and the Senate is at risk this time.
John Bachman: . . . but fundamentally, nothing has really changed
in that state for voters who are going to the polls . . . today.352
(p) On the December 17, 2020 broadcast of Stinchfield, which Newsmax
broadcast live on television on the Newsmax TV channel, and
republished to Newsmax’s YouTube account and Twitter account,
Grant Stinchfield: I want to bring in a guy now, who I know agrees
with me. . . . Mike Lindell. . . . So look, Fox News, we all know, has
problems. We know it’s responsible for bringing a lot of viewers to
Newsmax. . . .
...
Mike Lindell: . . . But I will say this, it’s a blessing, because at 11:15,
when they realized that the -- all of algorithms broke in all those
Dominion machines, that Donald Trump was going to win the
351
Newsmax TV, Greg Kelly Reports, The EMERGENCY APPEAL: Sidney Powell, YouTube
(Dec. 7, 2020), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwkVKNEs0uk (Ex. 25).
352
John Bachman Now, Newsmax (Dec. 14, 2020, 9:10 PM)
https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/849c5422-e609-448e-88b5-
deb1fbb12b6d?token=c9431b6b-60b7-4ce2-948d-eed6fe846f32 (Ex. 26).
159
presidency anyway, in spite of all the cheating, so they had to stop
everything in the middle of the night, and then backfill votes and
stop . . . .353
(q) On the December 18, 2020 broadcast of American Agenda, which

Dick Morris: . . . This is actual intervention in the vote count. This

is through Dominion software and Smartmatic. And the accusation
here is that the vote count itself was altered and flipped through that
software. You know, it’s been proven in one county in Michigan
. . .354
(r) On the December 18, 2020 broadcast of Greg Kelly Reports, which
Greg Kelly: That’s Russell Ramsland, election technology and

security expert, speaking before the election, and all of his concerns
unfortunately came true. Russell Ramsland wrote the very important
report on the craziness that happened in Antrim County, Michigan.
Russell, welcome back to Newsmax. How are you tonight?
Russell Ramsland: Good to be here.
Kelly: Thanks so much. So sir, your report I think was shocking. I

thought it was very, very important, and you lay out in great detail
all of the weirdness and the issues, and you’ve got the technical
expertise and it made perfect sense. . . .
Ramsland: . . . [T]he logs, had they been able to be published, show

very clearly that the RCV algorithm was enacted, it shows very
clearly that the error messages were massive, it shows very clearly
that races were flipped. Now, most of the important races that were
353
Newsmax TV, Stinchfield, Lindell: America is watching you, Fox, YouTube (Dec. 17, 2020,
5:35 PM), https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=jL8Id-q26F0 (Ex. 27).
354
American Agenda, Newsmax (Dec. 18, 2020),
https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/db62a290-e360-46b9-984a-
b5fb49464496?token=ae575e6a-a10c-4124-8254-c4f88f05daec (Ex. 28).
160
flipped were down ballot. The most important race was a marijuana,
proposal. . . .
Kelly: It is amazing. Yeah. 68 percent I think was the error rate,

which is obviously ludicrous. . . .
...
Kelly: I want to show the initial tally from Antrim County. It has Joe
Biden up with a pretty comfortable lead, and then things switched.
Let’s go ahead to the next one. By November 21st Donald Trump
had the lead, and I guess we were lucky to catch this. And you, I
think, made the point in the report that it could not have just been
Antrim County. Antrim County, if this were to happen there,
Dominion voting system is used in what, 48 counties, all 48 of
Michigan. There’s absolutely no way this was confined to one
county.
Ramsland: Correct. . . .
Kelly: It’s so troubling to me that people are discounting this, but I

don’t think you can steal something this big and get away with
it. . . .355
(s) On the December 21, 2020 broadcast of Greg Kelly Reports, which
Sebsatian Gorka: But now the election’s fine because their guy
“won.” So, don’t investigate anything. Nothing. . . . Well, we’re not
going to ignore it here, because we fight for the truth and we believe
that this is still the greatest nation on God’s earth and nobody gets
to steal it from us. . . . One man who decided, he’s not a politician,
he doesn’t work for the president, but he’s still fighting for him and
for the cause of truth, is a man that makes my show, for example,
America First on Salem Radio possible. The great Mike Lindell. . .
355
Greg Kelly Reports, Newsmax (Dec. 18, 2020),
https://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/61b6c650-cf46-400d-9606-
6296bd102730?token=f8a458a8-5923-4a4d-a01d-1ca5ac17de27 (Ex. 29).
161
. He’s fighting for America . . . Mike Lindell . . . what’s going on?
Mike Lindell: Well, I believe in this president, but – and I’ll tell you
what, nobody realizes . . . what America we had on election night at
11:15. You know, you talked about all this fraud, doctoring – the
biggest fraud is the Dominion machines. And at 11:15 on election
night our great president –
(Talking simultaneously.)
Gorka: Mike, I don’t want to discuss. Mike. Mike. We’re not going
to get into the minutia and the details. . . .356
249. As set forth above in detail, Newsmax published these false statements
about Dominion with actual malice, even though Newsmax and its agents, including
Greg Kelly, Grant Stinchfield, Heather Childers, Alison Maloni, Alicia Hesse,
Christopher Ruddy, John Bachman, Emma Rechenberg, Emerald Robinson,
Christopher Salcedo, Ben Johnson, and Rob Schmitt (among others), actually knew
and recklessly disregarded that they were false.
250. Newsmax’s statements are reasonably understood to be statements of
fact about Dominion, and were understood by people who saw, heard, and read them
to be statements of fact about Dominion.
251. Newsmax’s statements are false. Dominion did not rig the election, and
Dominion software did not switch any votes. Far from being created in Venezuela
to rig elections for a now-deceased Venezuelan dictator, Dominion was created in
356
Mike Lindell to Newsmax TV: “American Dream” Is on the Line, Newsmax (Dec. 21, 2020),
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/mike-lindell-election-lawsuits-american-
dream/2020/12/21/id/1002635/ (Ex. 30).
162
Toronto, and its voting systems are certified under standards promulgated by the
EAC, reviewed and tested by independent testing laboratories accredited by the
EAC, and were designed to be auditable and include a paper ballot backup to verify
results. Because of this backup, independent audits and hand recounts of paper
ballots have conclusively and repeatedly disproven the false claim that votes in
Dominion machines were flipped, weighted, deleted, or otherwise manipulated by
algorithms, software, cyber-attacks, or otherwise. Hugo Chávez’s elections were not
run by Dominion, but were affiliated with an entirely different company—
Smartmatic, a competitor of Dominion’s. Dominion was not created in or for
Venezuela, has never been located there, and is not owned by Smartmatic or
Venezuelans. Dominion has never provided machines or software or technology to
Venezuela, nor has it ever participated in any elections in Venezuela. It has no ties
to the Venezuelan government or Hugo Chávez. Dominion does not use
Smartmatic’s software or machines, and there was no Smartmatic technology in any
of Dominion’s voting machines in the 2020 election. Dominion did not bribe or pay
kickbacks to Georgia officials or their families. Dominion is not a member of the
CISA Board of Directors, nor is Dominion run by China or the Chinese Communist
Party.
252. Newsmax had no applicable privilege or legal authorization to make
these false and defamatory statements, or if it did, it abused it.
163
253. Newsmax’s defamatory statements, whether taken individually or
together in their cumulative impact, damaged Dominion in the various ways
described herein.
254. Dominion is entitled to punitive damages because Newsmax’s
defamatory statements were accompanied with malice, wantonness, and a conscious
desire to cause injury. Newsmax purposefully made the defamatory statements
heedlessly and with reckless and willful indifference to Dominion’s rights.
Newsmax made its false and defamatory statements about Dominion with inherent
bias and ill will.
255. Dominion is entitled to punitive damages because Newsmax published
its defamatory statements about Dominion with actual malice.
256. Newsmax’s statements are defamatory per se, as they impute serious
criminal conduct to Dominion and also malign Dominion in the conduct of its
business or trade. Newsmax’s statements have exposed Dominion to the most
extreme hatred and contempt. Newsmax, both directly and through the facially
unreliable guests Newsmax repeatedly hosted on its shows, has accused Dominion
of fraud, election-rigging, conspiracy, and bribery, which are serious crimes. For
Dominion—whose business is producing and providing voting systems for
elections—there are no accusations that could do more to damage Dominion’s
business or to impugn Dominion’s integrity, ethics, honesty, and financial integrity.
164
Newsmax’s statements were calculated to—and did in fact—provoke outrage and
cause Dominion enormous harm.
257. Newsmax spread the lies about Dominion throughout its television and
digital media platforms to an audience of tens of millions who placed credence in
Newsmax as a news source, and the falsehoods ultimately and foreseeably were
republished repeatedly on social media, as Newsmax intended. Newsmax’s viewers
were led by Newsmax to believe the lies. The inevitable effect was severe and
permanent damage to Dominion’s once-thriving business.
258. Newsmax’s viral disinformation campaign about Dominion reached
millions of people in the United States and worldwide and caused enormous
economic harm to Dominion. As a result of that defamatory campaign, Dominion
has suffered the following single and indivisible injuries: Dominion employees have
been stalked, have been harassed, and have received death threats; Dominion’s
offices have been attacked; Dominion has been forced to make an expenditure of
money to remedy the defamation and to protect the lives of its employees; Dominion
has lost profits; Dominion has suffered a loss of goodwill; and Dominion’s enterprise
value has been irreparably damaged. Dominion is entitled to damages, including
presumed economic damages, as a consequence of Newsmax’s conduct. These
presumed damages include but are not limited to the economic harm caused by
165
Newsmax in its race to the bottom with Fox and others that now has prevented
Dominion from becoming a multi-billion-dollar company.
259. In short, as explained above, Newsmax made these false statements of
fact with actual malice. At a minimum, Newsmax recklessly disregarded the truth.
Though not necessary, Newsmax also knew these statements about Dominion were
false. Newsmax acted with actual malice through the people—agents of Newsmax—
who had responsibility for airing these broadcasts and publishing these defamatory
statements. They include—but are not limited to—the hosts of the relevant
programs; the producers and editors of those programs; the Newsmax executives
responsible for airing each of those broadcasts, including but not limited to Alicia
Hesse; and the Newsmax executives responsible for overseeing Newsmax, including
but not limited to Christopher Ruddy.
260. The First Amendment is a cherished cornerstone of our democracy. But
the First Amendment is not a get-out-of-jail-free pass and clearly does not extend to
Newsmax’s conduct here. On its network and various mediums, Newsmax repeated,
endorsed, adopted, and made up its own narratives accusing Dominion of rigging
the election. Newsmax also invited numerous guests onto its shows whom Newsmax
knew would falsely accuse Dominion of various serious crimes—that was precisely
why Newsmax invited them onto its air. What Newsmax did here—promoting,
166
amplifying, and endorsing devastating lies about Dominion, with knowledge of their
falsity or reckless disregard for the truth—is not a close case.
261. Newsmax itself knew that it was spouting lies. For example, Newsmax
repeatedly—though quietly—removed broadcasts, segments, and other content from
its website that had been publicly debunked. In addition, one of Newsmax’s on-air
hosts, Bob Sellers, eventually rebuked Mike Lindell for peddling known lies about
Dominion, only to apologize on air the next day, calling Lindell a “friend of this
network” who would continue to be an important guest.357 And Newsmax host Grant
Stinchfield claimed on November 19 on air that he had an “investigative unit” that
had been “uncovering” evidence proving Dominion rigged the 2020 election and
stole it from President Trump. But on December 19, Newsmax publicly admitted it
never had such evidence.
262. The false statements broadcast, promoted, manufactured, and amplified
by Newsmax are inherently improbable. They rest on inherently unbelievable
allegations stacked on even more inherently unbelievable allegations. The existence
357
Katie Dowd, Trump Fans Turn on Newsmax After Its Off-the-Rails Interview with MyPillow’s
Mike Lindell, SFGate (Feb. 3, 2021), https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/mypillow-newsmax-
bob-sellers-twitter-segment-15921742.php ; Ron Dicker, Newsmax Host is Now Sorry for Walking
Out on ‘Important Guest’ Mike Lindell, Huffpost (Feb. 4, 2021),
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bob-sellers-apology-mike-
lindell_n_601bc8e6c5b62bf307546ac2?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29
vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAABVpma7PeYPG_hqxrXqNeqc8dS8_v7mjdV03oT
fbR2K1Bdd0YVGzVpT0KSIZeNl1TTE7yQ8FLLB0MjladtFIrFmP1ntsnfyO46pQbhe2-
rToAjXiIYzbb4fdbYCaSOYI1iUGVxZ_9TqP41oXr-d6CWKgvECgeIkixLHzgSMXomB6.
167
of the auditable trail of paper ballots alone is enough to render the allegations
inherently improbable. Moreover, the same Dominion machines that supposedly
were to blame for President Trump’s loss also were used in states President Trump
won such as Florida and Ohio. And all these same allegations were repeatedly
debunked, discredited, and absolutely dismissed by federal judges—including those
appointed by President Trump—and numerous Trump allies and administration
officials, in addition to 59 independent election security experts who themselves had
raised questions previously about hypothetical election vulnerabilities.
263. Newsmax knowingly and intentionally relied on and used completely
unreliable sources to perpetuate the defamatory lies about Dominion. By the time
Newsmax first aired false and defamatory allegations about Dominion from Sidney
Powell, Powell already had been completely discredited—as Newsmax knew or
willfully disregarded. By November 22, even the Trump Campaign had disavowed
Powell. Yet Newsmax continued to invite her on to spew lies. Moreover, by
November 19—at least as early as November 9—numerous hand recounts had
confirmed the accuracy of Dominion machines. Yet Newsmax still aired these lies.
264. Newsmax deliberately avoided and turned a blind eye to the truth in the
conduct of its investigations, and then deliberately lied about its investigations, by
publishing its false and defamatory statements about Dominion while lying about
168
what those investigations purportedly uncovered and then continuing to publish and
republish these false statements.
265. Newsmax’s false and defamatory statements about Dominion were
made in furtherance of and to fit within the preconceived storyline Newsmax
adopted and endorsed. Newsmax began touting election fraud even before the
election. Newsmax published its false and defamatory statements and conformed its
reporting about Dominion to fit this preconceived false narrative.
266. Newsmax published its false and defamatory statements to make a
profit at Dominion’s expense and at the expense of the truth. Newsmax’s financial
motivation to peddle its false narrative and lie about Dominion stealing the election
from Donald Trump was substantial. Vying for ratings and profits and competing
with Fox, Newsmax recklessly disregarded the truth—indeed, it knowingly lied—
about Dominion in order to recruit and keep viewers. And it did so to curry favor
with Trump and win his approval, because Newsmax knew that if it did, Trump
would endorse the network and give it the huge ratings boosts it coveted. Newsmax
also knew that if it did not—if, instead, Newsmax told its viewers the truth about
Dominion and the election—Trump would attack the network and cost it and its
owners millions and millions of dollars.
267. Newsmax, when confronted with the direct facts disproving its lies
about Dominion, refused to retract its false and defamatory statements, thereby
169
further demonstrating its actual malice in publishing them. Beginning on November
17, 2020—and repeatedly thereafter, including but not limited to November 18,
November 19, November 20, November 23, November 24, November 25,
November 26, November 30, December 3, December 5, December 14, and
December 17—Dominion sent Newsmax producer Alicia Hesse correspondence
detailing Newsmax’s defamatory falsehoods about Dominion, explaining how and
why those defamatory falsehoods were false, and providing citations to independent
sources confirming the falsity of those defamatory falsehoods. Dominion also sent
Newsmax retraction demand letters on December 18, 2020 and December 22, 2020
demanding the retraction of Newsmax’s defamatory falsehoods about Dominion.
Yet Newsmax still did not issue a retraction. Instead, Newsmax continues to make
its false and defamatory television broadcasts, social media posts, and statements
about Dominion available to the public today on Newsmax’s multitude of platforms.
268. Newsmax published its false and defamatory statements not once, but
repeatedly over a substantial period of time. Newsmax carried on its disinformation
and defamation campaign against Dominion for months while deliberately ignoring
Dominion’s specific and repeated warnings that these smears were not true, and
despite the ever-growing mountains of evidence conclusively demonstrating that
these statements were false. And it wasn’t just Dominion notifying Newsmax that it
was airing ridiculous fiction. Multiple people and organizations—from other news
170
outlets to third parties to governmental officials—declared publicly that the
falsehoods Newsmax was spreading were malicious lies and preposterous
conspiracy theories. Indeed, Newsmax itself knew these lies were untrue. But
Newsmax, fully knowing or recklessly disregarding that its false and defamatory
statements about Dominion were untrue, continued its deliberate and premeditated
campaign to vilify Dominion.
269. Newsmax also cannot truthfully or plausibly claim that it was just
reporting on the news of the day, or that it was simply reporting statements of the
then-President. To the contrary, it was Newsmax that was manufacturing claims and
promoting new content and storylines in support of the false Dominion election fraud
narrative, in hopes that it would catch President Trump’s eye and persuade him to
steer his loyal supporters to Newsmax.
270. To be sure, numerous other broadcasters reported at times on debunked
election fraud allegations, but many of those broadcasters framed their reporting by
noting that the allegations had been widely debunked. Newsmax, however, made a
different decision. Using its own voice as a news organization, Newsmax made,
published, ratified, endorsed, adopted, and amplified attacks on Dominion that it
knew were false or acted with reckless disregard for their truth or falsity. Through
its most-watched anchors, Newsmax promoted lies about Dominion and used its
growing influence in American culture to advance the false narrative that Dominion
171
was actively complicit in a fraudulent theft of the 2020 Presidential Election.
Newsmax even stated that these lies were “the truth,” and that their own
“investigative units” substantiated the lies. Newsmax made the intentional and
knowing choice to publicize the lies about Dominion as truth, creating an alternate
reality that continues to dupe millions of Americans into believing that Dominion
stole the 2020 election from Trump.
271. Newsmax’s many lies about Dominion were specific and verifiably
false, and therefore not “opinion.” At an absolute minimum, they are nonetheless
actionable as mixed opinions because they are based on underlying false facts and/or
on undisclosed facts. Newsmax used its brand in order to push and promote these
demonstrable falsehoods as truth.
272. Newsmax engaged in this knowing and reckless propagation of these
enormous falsehoods in order to profit off these lies. Newsmax wanted to increase
its viewership and grow its broadcast ratings, cater to an audience deeply loyal to
President Trump that was dissatisfied with other news organizations after the
election, like Fox, and establish itself as a leading voice in conservative news media.
Newsmax similarly sought to aggrandize certain of its most significant advertisers
like Mike Lindell, who were supporters of Donald Trump. Succumbing to these
motivations, Newsmax—both through the speakers it invited onto its shows and in
its own voice through many of its most prominent on-air personalities, including,
172
but not necessarily limited to, Greg Kelly, Emerald Robinson, and Grant
Stinchfield—defamed Dominion again and again.
273. In view of the foregoing, Dominion is entitled to actual, presumed,
punitive, and other economic damages in an amount to be specifically determined at
trial.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF

WHEREFORE, Dominion respectfully requests that the Court enter an award
and judgment in its favor, and against Newsmax Media, Inc., as follows:
(a) awarding Dominion general compensatory damages in amount to be

determined at trial;
(b) awarding Dominion damages for (1) lost profits of not less than
$600,000,000; (2) lost enterprise value (including lost goodwill) of not less than
$1,000,000,000; (3) security expenses of not less than $600,000; and (4) expenses
incurred combatting the disinformation campaign of not less than $700,000;
(c) awarding Dominion punitive damages in an amount to be determined
at trial;
(d) awarding Dominion pre- and post-judgment interest;
(e) awarding Dominion all expenses and costs, including attorneys’ fees;
and
(f) such other and further relief as the Court deems appropriate.
JURY DEMAND
Plaintiffs demand a trial by jury on all claims and issues so triable.
173
Dated: August 10, 2021 Respectfully submitted,
FARNAN LLP
/s/ Brian E. Farnan

Brian E. Farnan (Bar No. 4089)
Michael J. Farnan (Bar No. 5165)
919 N. Market St., 12th Floor
Wilmington, DE 19801
Tel: (302) 777-0300
bfarnan@farnanlaw.com
mfarnan@farnanlaw.com
Rodney Smolla (Bar No. 6327)

4601 Concord Pike
Wilmington, DE 19803
rodsmolla@gmail.com
(864) 373-3882
Of Counsel: Of Counsel:
Justin A. Nelson Thomas A. Clare, P.C.

Brittany Fowler Megan L. Meier
SUSMAN GODFREY LLP Dustin A. Pusch
1000 Louisiana Street, #5100 Daniel P. Watkins
Houston, Texas 77002 CLARE LOCKE LLP
(713) 651-9366 10 Prince Street
jnelson@susmangodfrey.com Alexandria, VA 22314
(202) 628-7400
Stephen Shackelford, Jr. tom@clarelocke.com
SUSMAN GODFREY LLP megan@clarelocke.com
1301 6th Avenue dustin@clarelocke.com
New York, NY 10019 daniel@clarelocke.com
(212) 336-8330
sshackelford@susmangodfrey.com
Davida Brook
SUSMAN GODFREY LLP
1900 Avenue of the Stars,
174
Suite 1400
Los Angeles, CA 90067
(310) 789-3100
dbrook@susmangodfrey.com
Attorneys for Plaintiffs
175
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Submitted by: Brian Farnan, Farnan LLP
Authorized by: Brian E Farnan, Farnan LLP
Authorize and file on: Aug 10 2021 8:00AM EDT
Court: DE Superior Court-New Castle County

Case Class: Civil
Case Type: CDEF - Defamation
Case Name: US Dominion, Inc. v. Newsmax Media, Inc.
Transaction Option: Originating Event

Billing Reference: DOM-FOX
Documents List
5 Document(s)
Originating Document,
175 Pages
Document Type: Access: Statutory Fee: Linked:
Complaint Public $211.25
Document title:
Complaint
Attached Document, 347 Pages

Exhibits Public $1.25
Document title:
Exhibits 1 through 30 to Complaint

Case Information Statement Public $1.25
Document title:
Case Information Statement

Praecipe Public $1.25
Document title:
Praecipe for Defendant Newsmax Media Inc.

Summons Public $1.25
Document title:
Summons for Defendant Newsmax Media Inc.
Close All
Sending Parties (6)
Party Party Type Attorney Firm Attorney Type

Dominion Voting Systems Corporation (pending) Plaintiff Farnan, Brian E Farnan LLP Attorney in Charge
Dominion Voting Systems Corporation (pending) Plaintiff Farnan, Michael Farnan LLP Attorney in Charge
Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. (pending) Plaintiff Farnan, Brian E Farnan LLP Attorney in Charge
Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. (pending) Plaintiff Farnan, Michael Farnan LLP Attorney in Charge
US Dominion, Inc. (pending) Plaintiff Farnan, Brian E Farnan LLP Attorney in Charge
US Dominion, Inc. (pending) Plaintiff Farnan, Michael Farnan LLP Attorney in Charge
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Case Parties
Party Party Type Attorney Firm Attorney Type
Dominion Voting Systems Corporation
Plaintiff Farnan, Brian E Farnan LLP Attorney in Charge
(pending)
Dominion Voting Systems Corporation
Plaintiff Farnan, Michael Farnan LLP Attorney in Charge
(pending)
Dominion Voting Systems, Inc.
(pending)
Dominion Voting Systems, Inc.
(pending)
Newsmax Media, Inc.
Defendant No Answer on File Firm TBD N/A
(pending)
US Dominion, Inc.
(pending)
US Dominion, Inc.
(pending)
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Dominion Newsmax Complaint

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Dominion Newsmax Complaint

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IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE

November 12, 2020:

November 19, 2020:

November 29, 2020:

Dominion. In jurisdiction after jurisdiction, in 28 states, in the midst of a highly

disruptive pandemic, Dominion’s voting machines facilitated efficient and reliable

been a triumph, however, turned to disaster—not because of anything Dominion did,

Donald Trump by rigging the vote.

opportunity. Spurred by a quest for profits and viewers, Newsmax—a competitor to

outrageous, spreading them further, and endorsing them as strongly as possible.

(3) Dominion is owned by or owns a company founded in Venezuela to rig elections

Dominion was involved with alleged voting irregularities in Dallas, Texas, in

2018—even though Dominion’s voting system was not used there.

4. Newsmax spread these lies by broadcasting and promoting interviews

and fabricated Dominion narrative by endorsing these known falsehoods as the

5. Newsmax created an entire brand out of defaming Dominion. For

and Dominion,” and called the segment “Democracy or Dominion.”

6. Throughout this time, Newsmax recklessly disregarded the truth;

confirmed by numerous independent audits and hand recounts of paper ballots

about Dominion had been debunked by an increasingly long list of bipartisan

election officials, election security experts, judges, then-Attorney General William

Barr, then-Director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

Chris Krebs, Election Assistance Commissioner Ben Hovland, Republican Georgia

Governor Brian Kemp, Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger,

and Republican former Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams, to name

Chavez for the purpose of rigging elections.

Trump supporters, and Trump Administration officials alike had completely

“steal”—including specifically that they received “kickbacks” from Dominion to

8. While Newsmax has claimed it was merely reporting on allegations

from President Trump. It repeatedly broadcast the lies of facially unreliable

sources—lies which Newsmax itself adopted, endorsed, promoted, and

is about Newsmax courting President Trump, by feeding its audience a torrent of

material up to this day.

done to its business.

PARTIES AND RELEVANT NON-PARTIES

11. Plaintiff US Dominion, Inc. is a for-profit Delaware corporation with

its principal place of business in Denver, Colorado. It is majority-owned by a private

12. Plaintiff Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. is a for-profit Delaware

13. Plaintiff Dominion Voting Systems Corporation is a for-profit Ontario

corporation with its principal place of business in Toronto, Ontario. It is a wholly

owned subsidiary of US Dominion, Inc. (US Dominion, Inc., Dominion Voting

before Election Day, Newsmax averaged 58,000 viewers from 7 to 10 p.m. on

increased nearly ten-fold.4 In February 2021, Newsmax claimed that it had

15. Christopher Ruddy is the Chief Executive Officer of Newsmax Media,

through our different outlets.”8

17. Grant Stinchfield hosts Stinchfield on Newsmax TV, which airs on

of Newsmax. Stinchfield is one of Newsmax’s top-five rated shows.19 In addition to

3 to 7 p.m. weekdays on KLIF/570 AM.20 Stinchfield promotes his shows across

social media, including through the Twitter handle @stinchfield1776.21 On

account @stinchfield1776, which is evidenced by the fact that the @stinchfield1776

of Newsmax. On information and belief, Newsmax operates and exercises control

the @EmeraldRobinson account’s profile lists her affiliation with Newsmax.24

19. Sidney Powell is an attorney and the author of a self-published book

pursued spurious litigation challenging the 2020 Presidential Election beginning on

speculation and conjecture,”26 and “largely based on anonymous witnesses, hearsay,

those witnesses and so-called “experts” “reach implausible conclusions, often

Presidential Election results.29 (According to Powell, President Trump himself told

Presidential Election to promote falsehoods about Dominion. As a result of Powell’s

faces sanctions in Michigan.31 During a hearing on the sanctions motion, the