Newsmax, Fox News backtrack from airing story claims of voter fraud

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• After being threatened by Smartmatic and Dominion, Newsmax and Fox News began airing stories rebuking their initial broadcast of voter fraud allegations.
• Both news networks previously broadcast President Donald Trump’s campaign, accusing Smartmatic and Dominion of tampering the election results.
• Smartmatic have urged both news networks to retract their stories last week.

Fox News and upstart right-wing network Newsmax have started backtracking from their stories, accusing voting-machine and software companies Smartmatic and Dominion as election manipulators during the Election Day after receiving warning of defamation lawsuits.

Citing the “opinions and claims” of their network’s “guests, attorneys and election officials,” Newsmax host John Tabacco said on Monday: “Newsmax would like to clarify its news coverage and note that it has not reported as true certain claims made about these companies.”

“Newsmax has found no evidence that either Dominion or Smartmatic owns the other or has any business association with each other,” Tabacco said.

“We have no evidence that Dominion uses Smartmatic’s software or vice versa. No evidence has been offered that Dominion or Smartmatic use software or reprogram software that manipulated votes in the 2020 election.”

Tabacco also cleared Smartmatic after saying that its software was only used in Los Angeles and not in the key swing states where President Donald Trump and his team have claimed cases of voting irregularities.

On the other hand, Fox News started airing a pre-taped withdrawal of various election fraud allegations published in recent weeks. The effort was made through an interview with Eddie Perez, Open Source Election Technology Institute director, which was initially broadcast on “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”

The suit was first directed towards Sidney Powell, President Donald Trump’s former attorney, who alleged that both groups have conspired with Democrats and the Venezuelan government to help Biden win the election.

During a November 19 press conference, Powell ridiculously threw jabs at Smartmatic and Dominion.

“The Dominion voting systems, the Smartmatic technology software and the software that goes in other computerized voting systems here as well, not just Dominion, were created in Venezuela at the direction of Hugo Chávez to make sure he never lost an election after one constitutional referendum came out the way he did not want it to come out,” he said without any factual basis.

Newsmax also asserted that claims made by Powell and other network guests were not clearly substantiated.

“Dominion has stated that the company has no ownership, relationship with the Pelosi family, the Feinstein family, the Clinton family, Hugo Chávez or the government of Venezuela,” Tabacco said.

“Neither Dominion or Smartmatic has any relationship with George Soros. Smartmatic is a U.S. company and not owned by the Venezuelan government, Hugo Chávez or any foreign official or entity.”

Smartmatic demanded both Foxs News and Newsmax, as well as One America News Network, to correct their ‘election fraud’ stories last week.

Source: AOL.com