Lou Dobbs, a former Fox News host, is facing a lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems for his role in promoting baseless claims of election fraud in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Dobbs, who was a prominent supporter of former President Donald Trump, repeatedly aired false allegations that Dominion Voting Systems was involved in a conspiracy to rig the election.
“I think many Americans have given no thought to electoral fraud that would be perpetrated through electronic voting, that is these machines … prominently Dominion, at least in the suspicions of a lot of Americans,” Dobbs said on his show.
During an interview with Sydney Powell, Dobbs reiterated the accusations, thanking Powell for the “groundbreaking new evidence indicating our presidential election came under massive cyber-attack orchestrated with the help of Dominion, Smartmatic and foreign adversaries.”
But Dobbs’ team said that the accusations were baseless. John Fawcett, one of Dobbs’ producers, described Powell’s election lawsuits as “complete bs” and speculated that she “could be losing her mind.”
Noting that Powell’s story “doesn’t make sense,” Fawcett warned that “I just don’t think she is verifying anything she is saying.”
In response to Dobbs’ statements, Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News in February 2021. The company claimed that Dobbs’ statements were false and damaging to their reputation, and that his actions contributed to a campaign of misinformation that ultimately led to threats against their employees.
A Part of a Bigger Effort to Spread Lies About Election Fraud
Dobbs’ claims were part of a broader effort by Trump and his supporters to undermine the legitimacy of the election, which he lost to Joe Biden. Trump and his allies claimed, without evidence, that there was widespread voter fraud in key swing states that had gone for Biden.
Dominion Voting Systems, which provides voting machines and software to local governments across the United States, became a target of these baseless claims. Trump and his supporters claimed that the company’s software had been manipulated to switch votes from Trump to Biden, and that the company had ties to foreign governments and leftist groups.
These claims were widely debunked by election officials, cybersecurity experts, and even some of Trump’s own appointees. Nevertheless, Dobbs and other Fox News hosts continued to promote them, giving them a national platform and contributing to the growing sense of distrust in the election results among Trump’s supporters.
Dominion Voting says the conspiracy theories were damaging to their reputation and resulted in threats against their employees. The company has stated that they will continue to pursue legal action against those who spread misinformation about them, in order to protect their reputation and ensure that the public has confidence in their products.