After their parent company received a lengthy, angry letter from a voting machine manufacturer at the center of multiple election conspiracy theories, three separate programs on Fox News and Fox Business aired an identical interview fact-checking some of their hosts’ own claims this weekend, enraging viewers and surprising the fact-based community.
The company, Smartmatic, has been smeared repeatedly by Fox News and Fox Business hosts — not to mention the President’s lawyers and others in the right-wing fever swamps — as a key player in a plot to rob Trump of a second term.
Earlier this month, Smartmatic sent a lengthy legal notice to Fox News demanding a public retractions “on multiple occasions … and across the various platforms used by Fox News to disseminate the false and defamatory statements.”
“The prominence of the retraction, including being featured during prime time slots, must match the attention and audience targeted with the original defamatory publications,” a lawyer for Smartmatic demanded.
It’s not yet clear whether Smartmatic is satisfied with the interview that aired several times over the weekend, which was with the election technology expert Eddie Perez, and performed by a nameless, faceless producer.
But the segment itself was completely surreal.
In a tight three minutes, Perez debunked many of the same falsehoods that the three shows have perpetrated for months. In addition to Dobbs’ program, the interview aired on “Justice with Judge Jeanine” Saturday night and “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo” the following morning.
“I have not seen any evidence that Smartmatic software was used to delete, change, alter — anything related to vote tabulation,” Perez said in response to the anonymous producer’s first question. And later: “I’m not aware of any direct connection between George Soros and Smartmatic.”
That would be news to Dobbs’ viewers: As Smartmatic itself pointed out in its letter earlier this month to Fox News, Dobbs claimed in November that “the chairman of Smartmatic is very very close to none other than Mr. Soros,” and therefore that the company consisted of “left-wing radicals.”
An attorney for Smartmatic, Erik Connolly, told TPM: “Smartmatic cannot comment on the recent broadcast by Fox News due to potential litigation.”
Perez, the global director of technology development and open standards at the Open Source Election Technology Institute (OSET), apparently didn’t know that he would be part of a legal cover-your-ass maneuver.
“I was never informed that the content would be for Mr. Dobbs’ show,” he told CNN, adding: “I am not accustomed to seeing Lou Dobbs air very straightforward factual evidence.”
This is very bizarre. Lou Dobbs ran a segment tonight basically debunking his own lies about Smartmatic voting machines pic.twitter.com/FDM91SPtT1
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 19, 2020
Fox viewers, struck with the truth, weren’t happy.
Who got to @MariaBartiromo? Why has she put this fraud Eddie Perez, clearly an apologist for Smartmatic, on her show TWICE to read scripted denials to scripted questions– right down to reading back the questions, a deposition trick taught by good trial attorneys? #Election2020
— KenTimmerman (@KenTimmerman) December 20, 2020
The media has been using an interview w/Eddie Perez, a Smartmatic "expert", without any pushback, to make a case defending Smartmatic. It's a joke. Noticeable in the entire interview was that he answered EVERY question with "I'm not aware of…" To me this means he knows nothing.
— Jerry Rosen (@Shortrosen) December 20, 2020
So I guess @MariaBartiromo just sold out-shameful
— One Proud Nana (@McwhirterDiana) December 20, 2020
Not only were identical interviews aired on each of the three shows, their introductions were nearly identical as well. Dobbs said of Perez: “We asked him for his assessment of Smartmatic, and recent claims about the company.”
A day later, Fox News contributor Lisa Boothe, guest-hosting for Jeanine Pirro, said “We asked him what he knew about Smartmatic and the claims some have made about that company.” Bartiromo, on Sunday morning, read the same exact line before airing the interview.
Over the weekend, OSET’s social media team parried away Trump fans angry that their favorite shows had aired something contrary to the weeks of election misinformation to which viewers had grown accustomed.
We appreciate your zeal here, but their source code or its origination is truly irrelevant here because there is absolutely no connection between @smartmatic technology and the Dominion technology used in this last election in any state or jurisdiction in question. For real.
— OSET Institute (@OSET) December 20, 2020
On the contrary, we’re well read into the history, not to mention our having some lead researchers here who spent years (in one case >10yrs) working for those vendors. They joined our cause for good reason. #KeepItReal
— OSET Institute (@OSET) December 20, 2020
We certainly won’t. That’s for others. We simply share our expertise and knowledge for anyone who asks.
— OSET Institute (@OSET) December 21, 2020
Actually, did not circumvent anything because there is no connection… ownership, code or otherwise. Venezuela has zero connection here. #KeepItReal
— OSET Institute (@OSET) December 21, 2020
