Dobbs and Bartiromo of Fox Business sued by election tech company

Fox Business Network anchors Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo are named as defendants in a lawsuit filed by election technology company Smartmatic alleging that their shows made fraudulent claims about election fraud, reports Jonah Bromwich and Ben Smith of The New York Times.

Bromwich and Smith write, “Mr. Dobbs, a Fox Business Network anchor, and Ms. Bartiromo, who hosts shows on Fox Business and Fox News, have been staunch supporters of the former president. On Nov. 29, Ms. Bartiromo conducted Mr. Trump’s first lengthy TV interview after the election. Ms. Pirro, a onetime prosecutor whose ‘Justice with Judge Jeanine’ is a staple of Fox New’s Saturday night lineup, has been friends with Mr. Trump for decades.

“Among the on-air exchanges the Smartmatic suit highlights is one between Ms. Powell and Mr. Dobbs on Nov. 16. Ms. Powell claimed on Mr. Dobbs’s show that Hugo Chávez, the deceased president of Venezuela, had a hand in the creation of Smartmatic technology, designing it so that the votes it processed could be changed undetected. (Mr. Chávez, who died in 2013, did not have anything to do with Smartmatic.)

“”The Smartmatic software is in the DNA of every vote-tabulating company’s software and systems,’ Ms. Powell said later on the show.

“Mr. Dobbs added, ‘We don’t even know who the hell really owns these companies, at least most of them.’

“After Smartmatic sent a letter in December asking for a correction and threatening legal action, the shows led by the three Fox anchors aired a segment in which an election expert, Eddie Perez, debunked a number of false claims about Smartmatic.”

Read more here. A Fox spokeswoman denied the claims in the lawsuit.