Newsmax Apologizes For ‘Harm’ Its False Reporting Caused Top Dominion Voting Systems Employee
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After spending months amplifying former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election, Newsmax finally issued a statement on Friday that acknowledged there was “no evidence” to support claims promoted on its air that Dominion Voting Systems and one of its top employees, Eric Coomer, manipulated election results in 2020.
In the statement published Friday, the conservative news network said that while it had initially covered claims by President Trump’s lawyers and supporters claims about widespread voter fraud it “subsequently found no evidence that such allegations were true.”
The network had been particularly dogged in its promotion of conspiracy theories that Dr. Eric Coomer, the Director of Product Strategy and Security at Dominion Voting Systems had played a role in manipulating voting machines and the final vote counts in the 2020 presidential election.
But now, months later, the company is acknowledging that extensive recounts and audits in a number of states falsely attacked by Trump and his allies, do not support those claims.
“Many of the states whose results were contested by the Trump campaign after the November 2020 election have conducted extensive recounts and audits, and each of these states certified the results as legal and final,” the company said.
The Newsmax statement comes months after Coomer filed a defamation lawsuit against the news network in Denver County in December. The Trump campaign, Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, conservative outlet One America News Network and others are also named in the suit.
Newsmax was dropped from the suit on Friday, after reaching a financial settlement whose terms were not publicly disclosed, according to Colorado Public Radio who first reported the statement from Newsmax.
CPR said that Coomer has been living in hiding for nearly six months.
According to the complaint filed in December, Coomer had been forced to flee his home in response to the credible threats and had to “sever ties with friends and family members in order to stay in seclusion.”
Coomer told the Associated Press during an interview at the time, that right-wing websites posted his photo, home address and details about his family and that death threats quickly followed.
“Dr. Coomer has had an onslaught of harassment and credible death threats issued against him; he is at risk in his home or in going to work; his presence puts his family, friends, colleagues, and his community in danger,” Coomer’s lawyers argued in the complaint at the time.
In its statement, Newsmax said it had found no evidence that Coomer had manipulated voting machines.
“Newsmax has found no evidence that Dr. Coomer interfered with Dominion voting machines or voting software in any way, nor that Dr. Coomer ever claimed to have done so,” the statement said. “Nor has Newsmax found any evidence that Dr. Coomer ever participated in any conversation with members of ‘Antifa,’ nor that he was directly involved with any partisan political organization.”
“On behalf of Newsmax, we would like to apologize for any harm that our reporting of the allegations against Dr. Coomer may have caused to Dr. Coomer and his family,” the statement added.