Smartmatic indicted in foreign bribery case, possibly endangering its lawsuits against Fox News and Giuliani
By Marshall Cohen, CNN
Washington (CNN) — The Justice Department on Thursday filed foreign bribery charges against Smartmatic, the voting technology company that is suing Fox News and other prominent pro-Trump figures for defamation over their promotion of 2020 election lies.
The bribery and money laundering charges against Smartmatic arose from an existing case filed last year against some of its current and former executives, including its founder.
The indictment relates to an alleged $1 million bribe paid to the top election official in the Philippines to secure lucrative contracts for that country’s 2016 elections. The indictment doesn’t include any allegations of voter fraud or election-rigging against Smartmatic.
The news could be catastrophic for Smartmatic, potentially weakening its hand in pending 2020 election-related defamation lawsuits against Fox News, the Fox News host turned US attorney Jeanine Pirro, ex-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.
The charges could undermine Smartmatic’s arguments that its reputation has been damaged solely by these pro-Trump figures and their brazen lies about the 2020 election.
“This is more of the same. A photocopy of the previous spurious indictment,” Smartmatic said in a statement on Thursday, denying wrongdoing and vowing to fight the case.
The company further said, “We believe the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida has been misled and politically influenced by powerful interests, despite our extensive cooperation with the government. This is again, targeted, political, and unjust.”
It’s unclear what meddling Smartmatic is referring to. President Donald Trump has successfully pushed in recent weeks to prosecute his opponents, but the underlying case against Smartmatic executives was brought by the Biden-era Justice Department, and career prosecutors endorsed Thursday’s new indictment, according to court filings.
Smartmatic’s co-defendants previously pleaded not guilty.
The company’s machines and software are widely used overseas, but in US elections, they are only used in Los Angeles. Dean Logan, the top election official for Los Angeles County, told CNN in a statement that the county owns and controls its own voting systems, but will “hold Smartmatic accountable to the terms and protections” of their ongoing contract.
“The indictment is unrelated to the County’s administration of elections or the integrity of Los Angeles County’s voting systems, and the County’s contracts with Smartmatic were validated to ensure that all work was performed and requirements met,” Logan said. “Further, the County’s engagements with Smartmatic are fixed fee contracts with specific protection from the types of add-on fees and price inflation alleged in the activities cited in the indictment.”
The defamation cases
After President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, he and his allies spread the false claim that Smartmatic technology flipped millions of votes to rob him of a victory.
Smartmatic filed defamation lawsuits in 2021 against these figures, and other right-wing media outlets, seeking billions of dollars in damages. The company settled with Newsmax last year for $40 million and settled with One America News for an undisclosed amount.
All of these pro-Trump outlets and figures deny wrongdoing.
The Philippines scandal — which CNN first revealed in 2023 — has provided a major boost to these pro-Trump figures facing defamation lawsuits. They have sought additional documents about the criminal probe, hoping these will weaken damages claims from Smartmatic, and they’ve argued that the indictment proves Smartmatic’s shady practices.
“Smartmatic was and is a failing company: its continued cozy relationship with dictators, a decade of mismanagement and poor performance, and criminal bribery charges against its highest echelon of leaders,” Fox News wrote in a court filing earlier this year.
Kate Mangels, a Los Angeles-based defense attorney who has handled defamation cases, said the indictment “severely limits” Smartmatic’s ability to claim it’s still suffering from ongoing damages from the 2020-era lies about its supposed vote-rigging.
“The defendants in the defamation lawsuits will likely argue that, to the extent Smartmatic’s reputation has been harmed, it is impossible to tease out what harm came from the alleged defamation and what harm came from the indictment,” Mangels said.
The indictment could also influence settlement negotiations, Mangels said, because “at trial, it would be difficult for Smartmatic to establish that all the damages” stem from the allegedly defamatory broadcasts and statements.
This story has been updated.
The-CNN-Wire
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