General Discussion

Midnightwalk

(3,131 posts) Fri Feb 5, 2021, 01:28 AM Feb 2021

Some stuff from the Smartmatic suit

The Smartmatic suit seems like a block buster. Quoting liberally because it is a public document. I think that's OK, if not I'll delete. Seemed too long to drop into one of the other threads.

I'm not a lawyer, I just started to like reading these and pulling out the parts that catch my eye.
[link: https://www.smartmatic.com/uploads/Smartmatic_Complaint_Against_Fox_Corporation.pdf|]

I love the list of defendants:
FOX CORPORATION
FOX NEWS NETWORK, LLC
LOU DOBBS
MARIA BARTIROMO
JEANINE PIRRO
RUDOLPH GIULIANI
SIDNEY POWELL

It starts off with the round Earth and 2+2 quotes you've probably seen, They are lying and they know they are lying.

1. The Earth is round. Two plus two equals four. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election for President and Vice President of the United States. The election was not stolen, rigged, or fixed. These are facts. They are demonstrable and irrefutable.

2. Defendants have always known these facts. They knew Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 U.S. election. They knew the election was not stolen. They knew the election was not rigged or fixed. They knew these truths just as they knew the Earth is round and two plus two equals four.

The defendants wanted Trump to win, but they wanted to benefit in other ways. They also wanted to incite violence.

3. Defendants did not want Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to win the election. They wanted President Donald Trump and Vice President Michael Pence to win re-election. Defendants were disappointed. But they also saw an opportunity to capitalize on President Trump’s popularity by inventing a story. Defendants decided to tell people that the election was stolen from President Trump and Vice President Pence.

4. Defendants had an obvious problem with their story. They needed a villain. They needed someone to blame. They needed someone whom they could get others to hate. A story of good versus evil, the type that would incite an angry mob, only works if the storyteller provides the audience with someone who personifies evil.

Smartmatic is a US company and was involved in only LA County elections. No where else. That wouldn't do

Those facts would not do for Defendants. So, the Defendants invented new ones. In their story, Smartmatic was a Venezuelan company under the control of corrupt dictators from socialist countries. In their story, Smartmatic’s election technology and software were used in many of the states with close outcomes. And, in their story, Smartmatic was responsible for stealing the 2020 election by switching and altering votes to rig the election for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Bunch of other details. Who are all the parties. Smartmatic holding company which owns software companies in several countries and has done elections in several as well. Why this court has jurisdiction over each defendant. You know, the stuff that wasn't in any of the republican election cases.

In there, they bring up conspiracy. I'm not a lawyer, but on TV there would be some dramatic music:

The Court also has personal jurisdiction over Defendant Sidney Powell pursuant to CPLR § 302 as a co-conspirator with Mr. Giuliani and the Fox Defendants, both of whom committed tortious acts (including disparagement) in New York. Ms. Powell and Mr. Giuliani were two of the central driving forces behind the conspiracy to portray Smartmatic as a villain.

Then some marketing on who Smartmatic is and their reputation around the world leading to "our reputation is important":

Smartmatic’s success was built on its reputation for secure, reliable, and auditable election technology and software.

I don't know which I like better. Defamation to sell coins and supplements, or the imaginary enemies bit

The story could also make Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell money. Mr. Giuliani would cast himself as President Trump’s personal lawyer. He reportedly would seek thousands of dollars ($20,000/day) in fees from President Trump to spread the story and file frivolous lawsuits. He would also use the attention brought to him as one of the primary storytellers to sell various products – from coins to supplements to title fraud protection. Ms. Powell would set up websites soliciting money from President Trump’s followers to spread the story, file frivolous lawsuits, and fight imaginary enemies of democracy.

Fox wanted ratings:

Fox News needed a way to reclaim its favored status with President Trump and his followers. Enter Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell.

There's a lot of transcripts from Fox News. Never heard some of the allegations. I'll briefly summarize some of the "logic"

Hugo Chavez was a software mogul

And the software that they use is done by a company called Smartmatic. It’s a company that was founded by Chávez

Apparently you have to ship votes overseas for reasons. Oh yeah it's Fox, it's always the foreigners. This is covered in detail later in the document...

But Dominion sends everything to Smartmatic. Can you believe it? Our votes are sent overseas. Sent to someplace else, some other country

Democratic cities are part of the old west.

It spans the country. It is isolated to Democrat cities. They were smart to do it in cities - it’s like the old west - cities they control, where they control the workers.

They also said they had sworn affidavits which had to be real because there's penalties for perjury. It'll be fun to see them have to provide them in response. Maybe they can claim Giuli went rabid and ate them all.

Now the President’s lawyers offered evidence by way of affidavits, which I told you last Saturday as a judge, from a legal perspective, are sworn statements of individuals signed under penalty of perjury. Meaning they know they face the penalty of prosecution and five years [in prison] if they lie. These sworn statements are factual allegations, are part of virtually every lawsuit. It’s how you start a case. The President’s lawyers have indicated that they have 250 such affidavits under oath.

Even Dershowitz gets a cameo. It's not too kooky for him, but he keeps off the defendant list by simply saying he has seen no evidence

Mr. Dershowitz: The other legal theory they [the Trump campaign] have, which is a potentially strong one, is that the computers, either fraudulently or by glitches, changed hundreds of thousands of votes. There, there are enough votes to make a difference, but I haven’t seen the evidence to support that ...

Lots more details, but one last. Turns out they seem to Smartmatic's lawyers think admitting you lied, but not really retracting the lie is a problem too. If they are right (sound right to me but that doesn't matter), they might have screwed up big time.

Fox Defendants eventually admitted they had no basis for their statements and implications about Smartmatic.
231. The Fox Defendants, for their part, have acknowledged – partially and begrudgingly – that they had no basis for the statements and implications they published about Smartmatic. On December 10, Smartmatic sent a retraction demand letter to Fox News Network, LLC. (12/10/20 Retraction Demand Letter to Fox News (Exhibit 77)). The 20-page retractiondemand letter identified many of the false and misleading statements published by Fox, explained the reasons the statements were false and misleading, and requested a full and complete retraction.

Fox did not issue a retraction. Instead, on December 18, Mr. Dobbs appeared on Lou Dobbs Tonight and introduced a “leading authority” who confirmed that there was no evidence to support the claims that the Defendants, including Mr. Dobbs, had been making about Smartmatic for the last month.

-- snip --

Mr. Dobbs did not acknowledge, in his introduction, that he was one of the primary voices making claims about Smartmatic. Nor did Mr. Dobbs acknowledge that he and others on his program, including Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell, did not frame their statements about Smartmatic as opinions. Rather, they framed their statements about Smartmatic as being facts based on “tremendous evidence.”