“We’ve gotten to this point where there’s so much falsity that is being spread on certain platforms, and you may need an occasion where you send a message, and that’s what punitive damages can do in a case like this.”-- J. Erik Connolly, attorney for Smartmatic, the digital security company that's been slimed by Trump media sycophants like Fox "News," Newsmax and OAN. The threat of a defamation lawsuit caused Fox to force three of its worst (Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro) to run canned segments on each show debunking their insane conspiracy tales.
The article this is taken from outlines real peril to further- to- the- right- than- Fox outlets Newsmax and OAN for their defamatory lies about Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems:
These are legal threats any company, even a giant like Fox Corporation, would take seriously. And they could be fatal to the dream of a new “Trump TV,” a giant new media company in the president’s image, and perhaps contributing to his bottom line. Newsmax and OAN would each like to become that, and are both burning money to steal ratings from Fox, executives from both companies have acknowledged. They will need to raise significantly more money, or to sell quickly to investors, to build a Fox-style multibillion-dollar empire. But outstanding litigation with the potential of an enormous verdict will be enough to scare away most buyers.
And so Newsmax and OAN appear likely to face the same fate as so many of President Trump’s sycophants, who have watched him lie with impunity and imitated him — only to find that he’s the only one who can really get away with it...
We can only hope that facing legal and financial penalties for their defamatory, seditious behavior causes their demise, and would also serve to de-fang a potential "Trump TV" as a platform for further degrading democracy. Loony current and former Elite Strike Force Power Rangers Rudy "Toot Toot" Giuliani and Sydney Powell are also potential targets*.
Root for the lawyers.
*UPDATE: See you in court!
An election systems worker driven into hiding by death threats has filed a defamation lawsuit against President Donald Trump's campaign, two of its lawyers and some conservative media figures and outlets.
Eric Coomer, security director at the Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems, said he wants his life back after being named in false charges as a key actor in “rigging” the election for President-elect Joe Biden. There has been no evidence that the election was rigged.
His lawsuit, filed Tuesday in district court in Denver County, Colorado, names the Trump campaign, lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, conservative columnist Michelle Malkin, the website Gateway Pundit, Colorado conservative activist Joseph Oltmann, and conservative media Newsmax and One America News Network.
That's a who's who of far right crackpots. Make them pay.
