BIG BUCKS

Secret E. Jean Carroll Backer Is Now Funding Lawsuit vs. Fox News

Billionaire LinkedIn co-founder helping to pay for $2.7 billion defamation suit.

Billionaire LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman has made a multi-million dollar investment in the Smartmatic defamation lawsuit against Fox News and Newsmax in an attempt to help the company sustain its expensive litigation. Smartmatic has accused the two right-wing news outlets of smearing it by airing false claims of rigged voting collection in the 2020 presidential election. In a statement to The Washington Post, Hoffman alluded to the toll that the claims have taken on Smartmatic and that the business aimed to make voting “simple and trustworthy.” “After Donald Trump lost in 2020, however, Smartmatic became a target of the defamatory campaign to overturn his defeat,” Hoffman told The Post. Smartmatic is suing Fox for $2.7 billion, arguing that its business and future prospects were injured by the comments made on the network. Hoffman is a longtime funder of left-leaning causes and recently helped fund the civil lawsuit writer E. Jean Carroll filed against Donald Trump in New York. He also donated $2 million in an effort to get New Hampshire voters to write President Joe Biden in the state’s primary in January. Fox News said in a statement that Smartmatic’s damages claim was “disconnected from reality” and said it will defend the case next year. It called Hoffman’s move and “an alliance with a...longtime supporter of President Biden” and “entirely predictable.”