Fox Settles Defamation Case Involving Lou Dobbs

Fox News has settled a defamation case involving former host Lou Dobbs and his allegations of a rigged 2020 election. Lawyers for the network and Venezuelan businessman Majed Khalil informed a federal judge in New York over the weekend that they had settled the case, reports the Hill. No financial details were released. As the New York Times notes, the settlement comes days before jury selection is scheduled to begin in a bigger defamation case against the network—one in which Dominion Voting Systems is suing for $1.6 billion, alleging that Fox hosts knowingly spread false claims that the company flipped the election for Joe Biden.

In the case involving Khalil, he sued after Dobbs accused him on social media in December 2020 of being the "effective ‘COO’" of the scheme to steal the election. That same day, attorney Sidney Powell went on Dobbs' show and said Khalili designed and developed rigged voting machines as part of the scheme. Fox canceled Dobbs' show in February 2021. Deadline sees the Khalil case as "a bit of a sidelight" to the bigger case that gets under way this week. “This matter has been resolved amicably by both sides,” a Fox News rep said in a statement, per the Los Angeles Times. (Emails show that prominent Fox hosts privately mocked claims that the election was stolen.)