The conservative network Newsmax will pay $67 million to settle a lawsuit accusing it of defaming a voting equipment company by spreading lies about President Trump’s 2020 election loss, according to documents filed Monday. The suit against Newsmax was brought by Dominion Voting Systems, which alleged the network published false and defamatory statements claiming the company rigged the election. A Delaware judge ruled partially in favor of Dominion in a decision earlier this year, additional court filings show.
The settlement comes after Fox News Channel paid $787.5 million to settle a similar lawsuit in 2023 and Newsmax paid what court papers describe as $40 million to settle a libel lawsuit from a different voting machine manufacturer, Smartmatic, which also was a target of pro-Trump conspiracy theories on the network.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis had ruled earlier that Newsmax did indeed defame Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems by airing false information about the company and its equipment. But Davis left it to a jury to eventually decide whether that was done with malice, and, if so, how much Dominion deserved from Newsmax in damages. Newsmax and Dominion reached a settlement before the trial could take place.
In a statement to CBS News on Monday, a Dominion spokesperson said the company was “pleased to have settled this matter.”
The settlement originally came to light in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing by Newsmax, which was dated Friday, Aug. 15, the day that a deal was reached, according to the document. Newsmax has agreed to pay the settlement in three installments of $27 million, $20 million and $20 million, with the final installment to be paid in January 2027, the filing said.
Newsmax continues to deny allegations that suggest its coverage of Dominion in the context of the 2020 election was defamatory.
“Newsmax believed it was critically important for the American people to hear both sides of the election disputes that arose in 2020,” the company said in a statement published on its website. “We stand by our coverage as fair, balanced, and conducted within professional standards of journalism.”
The disclosure of the settlement came as Mr. Trump, who lost his 2020 reelection bid to former President Joe Biden, vowed in a social media post Monday to eliminate mail-in ballots and voting machines, such as those supplied by Dominion and other companies, ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. It was unclear how the Republican president could achieve that.
Seth Wenig/AP
“I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES, which cost Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election,” Mr. Trump wrote in the post.
The same judge also handled the Dominion-Fox News case and made a similar ruling that the network repeated numerous lies by Mr. Trump’s allies about his 2020 loss, despite internal communications showing Fox officials knew the claims were bogus. At the time, Davis found it was “CRYSTAL clear” that none of the allegations was true.
Internal correspondence from Newsmax officials likewise shows they knew the claims were baseless.
“How long are we going to play along with election fraud?” Newsmax host Bob Sellers said two days after the 2020 election was called for Biden, according to internal documents revealed as part of the case.
Newsmax took pride that it was not calling the election for Biden, and internal documents show it saw a business opportunity in catering to viewers who believed Mr. Trump won. Private communications that surfaced as part of Dominion’s earlier defamation case against Fox News also revealed how the network’s business interests intersected with decisions it made related to coverage of Mr. Trump’s 2020 election claims.
At Newsmax, employees repeatedly warned against false allegations from pro-Trump guests such as attorney Sidney Powell, according to documents in the lawsuit. In one text, even Newsmax owner Chris Ruddy, a Trump ally, said he found it “scary” that Mr. Trump was meeting with Powell.
Dominion was at the heart of many of the wild claims aired by guests on Newsmax and elsewhere, who promoted a conspiracy theory involving deceased Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to rig the machines for Biden. The network retracted some of the more bombastic allegations in December 2020.
Ben Gray/AP 
Though Mr. Trump has insisted his fraud claims are real, there’s no evidence they were, and the lawsuits in the Fox and Newsmax cases show how some of the president’s biggest supporters knew they were false at the time. Mr. Trump’s then-attorney general, William Barr, said there was no evidence of widespread fraud.
Mr. Trump and his backers lost dozens of lawsuits alleging fraud, some before Trump-appointed judges. Numerous recounts, reviews and audits of the election results, including some run by Republicans, turned up no signs of significant wrongdoing or error and affirmed Biden’s win.
After returning to office, Mr. Trump pardoned those who tried to halt the transfer of power during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and directed his Department of Justice to investigate Chris Krebs, a former Trump cybersecurity appointee who had vouched for the security and accuracy of the 2020 election.
As an initial trial date approached in the Dominion case earlier this year, Mr. Trump issued an executive order attacking the law firm that litigated it and the Fox case, Susman Godfrey. The order, part of a series targeting law firms that Mr. Trump has tussled with, cited Susman Godfrey’s work on elections and said the government would not do business with any of its clients or permit any of its staff in federal buildings.
A federal judge put that action on hold, saying the framers would view it as “a shocking abuse of power.”
