Lawyers for a voting machine company that’s suing Fox News want to question founder Rupert Murdoch about his contentious efforts to change his family trust, the attorneys told a court Monday.
Election-tech company Smartmatic's $2.7 billion defamation suit regards Fox's reporting on 2020 voting fraud claims. But Smartmatic’s attorneys suggest the separate succession fight over Murdoch's media empire might shed light on any Fox Corp. involvement in editorial matters.
It's an important, if technical, question as Smartmatic seeks to hold the deep-pocketed Fox parent company responsible for statements that the news network aired. Fox contends that there's no such liability and that it was engaging in journalism, not defamation, when it broadcast election-fraud allegations made by then-President Donald Trump 's attorneys.
Rupert Murdoch may already have given a deposition — out-of-court questioning under oath — in the defamation suit. Such records aren't public at this stage, but plans for his deposition were briefly mentioned at a 2022 hearing.
Smartmatic now is seeking to talk to Murdoch about his efforts to rewrite his plans for his businesses after his death.
The matter is playing out behind closed doors and in sealed files in a Nevada probate court. The New York Times has reported that Rupert Murdoch wants to keep his eldest son, Lachlan, in charge of the conglomerate's newspapers and television networks in order to ensure a continued conservative editorial outlook.
Smartmatic wants to get the 93-year-old patriarch on record while the probate matter plays out, company attorney Edward Wipper told a judge Monday.
Fox News lawyer K. Winn Allen said the probate case “has nothing at all to do with” Smartmatic's claims and is “not appropriate” fodder for the suit.
Fox Corp. declined to comment after court.
Fox News' lawyers, meanwhile, want Smartmatic to provide records about a U.S. federal criminal case against people, including Smartmatic co-founder Roger Piñate, accused of scheming to bribe a Filipino election official. Piñate has pleaded not guilty.
Smartmatic isn't charged in the criminal case, and Smartmatic attorneys have said the matter was irrelevant to the defamation suit. Fox lost prior bids for a court order to get the information, but a hearing on the network's renewed request is set next week.
It's unclear how soon Judge David B. Cohen will decide on that request or on Smartmatic's bid to dig into the Murdoch family trust case. Both requests are part of pretrial information-gathering, and no trial date has been set.
Smartmatic says it was a small player, working only with California's heavily Democratic Los Angeles County, in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
In subsequent Fox News appearances, Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell portrayed Smartmatic as part of a multi-state scheme to steal the vote from the Republican.
Federal and state election officials, exhaustive reviews in battleground states and Trump’s own attorney general found no widespread fraud that could have changed the outcome of the 2020 election. Nor did they uncover any credible evidence that the vote was tainted. Dozens of courts, including by judges whom Trump had appointed, rejected his fraud claims.
Fox News ultimately aired an interview with an election technology expert who refuted the allegations against Smartmatic — an interview done after the company demanded a retraction.
The network is countersuing Smartmatic, claiming it violated a New York law against baseless suits aimed at squelching reporting or criticism on public issues.
The New York defamation suit is one of several stemming from conservative-oriented news outlets' reports on Trump’s 2020 vote-rigging claims. Smartmatic recently settled with One America News Network and Newsmax.
Fox News settled for $787 million last year with Dominion Voting Systems, another election-technology company that sued over conspiracy theories blaming its election equipment for Trump’s 2020 loss.
FILE - A headline about President Donald Trump is shown outside Fox News studios, Nov. 28, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
FILE - A Smartmatic representative demonstrates his company's system, which has scanners and touch screens with printout options, at a meeting of the Secure, Accessible & Fair Elections Commission, Aug. 30, 2018, in Grovetown, Ga. (Bob Andres/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File)
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The deadliest place for women is at home and 140 women and girls on average were killed by an intimate partner or family member per day last year, two U.N. agencies reported Monday.
Globally, an intimate partner or family member was responsible for the deaths of approximately 51,100 women and girls during 2023, an increase from an estimated 48,800 victims in 2022, UN Women and the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime said.
The report released on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women said the increase was largely the result of more data being available from countries and not more killings.
But the two agencies stressed that “Women and girls everywhere continue to be affected by this extreme form of gender-based violence and no region is excluded.” And they said, “the home is the most dangerous place for women and girls.”
UN Women’s Deputy Executive Director Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda told a news conference launching the report that women have been killed by their loved ones for a long time and the trend is continuing because underlying issues haven’t been addressed — especially gender stereotyping and social norms.
“This is killing which is associated with power over women,” she said, and it continues because of the continuing impunity for violent attacks against women.
Gumbonzvanda, a Zimbabwean and longtime advocate for women’s rights, said there is “a lot of perpetrator anonymity” when it comes to the killing of women by partners or family members because “it means the family members have to bring justice against another family member.”
UN Women is campaigning for those with economic and political power and for leaders in various traditions not to use their power to perpetuate violence. “Power should be used to facilitate options for prevention,” she said.
According to the report, the highest number of intimate partner and family killings was in Africa – with an estimated 21,700 victims in 2023. Africa also had the highest number of victims relative to the size of its population — 2.9 victims per 100,000 people, it said.
There were also high rates last year in the Americas with 1.6 female victims per 100,000 and in Oceania with 1.5 per 100,000, it said. Rates were significantly lower in Asia at 0.8 victims per 100,000 and Europe at 0.6 per 100,000.
According to the report, the intentional killing of women in the private sphere in Europe and the Americas is largely by intimate partners.
By contrast, the vast majority of male homicides take place outside homes and families, it said.
“Even though men and boys account for the vast majority of homicide victims, women and girls continue to be disproportionately affected by lethal violence in the private sphere," the report said.
“An estimated 80% of all homicide victims in 2023 were men while 20% were women, but lethal violence within the family takes a much higher toll on women than men, with almost 60% of all women who were intentionally killed in 2023 being victims of intimate partner/family member homicide,” it said.
The report said that despite efforts to prevent the killing of women and girls by countries, their killings “remain at alarmingly high levels.”
“They are often the culmination of repeated episodes of gender-based violence, which means they are preventable through timely and effective interventions,” the two agencies said.
Demonstrators take part in a rally ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women which will held on Nov. 25, in Rome, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Demonstrators take part in a rally ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women which will be held on Nov. 25, in Rome, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
People take part in a rally ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, in front of the Colosseum in Rome, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024.. (Roberto Monaldo/LaPresse via AP)
People take part in a march marking the upcoming International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, in Lima, Peru, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Guadalupe Pardo)
People take part in a march marking the upcoming International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, in Lima, Peru, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Guadalupe Pardo)
CGT union secretary general Sophie Binet, center, attends a march during the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in Paris, France, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
A woman holds a torch during a rally marking the upcoming International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, in Istanbul,Turkey, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)
Demonstrators take part in a rally ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women which will be held on Nov. 25, in Rome, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Ariana Campos takes part in a march marking the upcoming International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, in Lima, Peru, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Guadalupe Pardo)
