Judge grills lawyers for Fox News, Powell, Giuliani about election claims in Smartmatic suit

Rudolph Giuliani and Sidney Powell, attorneys for President Donald Trump, conduct a news conference at the Republican National Committee on lawsuits regarding the outcome of the 2020 presidential election on Thursday, November 19, 2020.

Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

A skeptical-sounding judge on Tuesday questioned lawyers for Fox News, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell about a series of election-fraud claims at the center of a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit filed against them by voting technology firm Smartmatic.

The company, which only provided services to Los Angeles County in the 2020 election, accuses the defendants of spreading the false story that it rigged the race against former President Donald Trump.

In virtual oral arguments on Fox’s bid to have the case dropped, Manhattan Supreme Court Judge David Cohen pressed counsel for the conservative news outlet about specific claims made on its air by current and former hosts Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro and Lou Dobbs.

“How is that not defamatory?” Cohen at one point asked Fox attorney Paul Clement after referencing a claim from Dobbs in mid-November that Smartmatic had been banned in Texas. The company had not been banned in the state.

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Clement responded that that particular claim had been made in the context of a conversation with Giuliani, at the time a lawyer for Trump, who alleged nefarious links between Smartmatic and another company, Dominion Voting Systems.

Smartmatic and Dominion are independent firms that have no connection, the

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