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Right-wing TV networks Fox News, One America News Network (OAN), and Newsmax were hit with billion-dollar lawsuits over their coverage of the November 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems brought defamation cases against the three media organizations, accusing them of spreading conspiracy theories that it rigged the presidential election against Donald Trump and skewed results in favor of now-President Joe Biden.

Meanwhile, a $1.6 billion lawsuit brought by Dominion against Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, was given the green light to proceed last month.

The suit accuses the company of allowing Fox News to spread and amplify baseless accusations of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election, including unfounded allegations that the election was stolen with the help of Dominion, which provided voting machines to 28 states.

It argues that the company, which is owned by the Murdoch family, is liable for statements on the Fox News network.

"These allegations support a reasonable inference that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch either knew Dominion had not manipulated the election or at least recklessly disregarded the truth when they allegedly caused Fox News to propagate its claims about Dominion," said Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis, who ruled last December that Dominion could sue Fox News Network.

"Dominion has adequately pleaded actual malice with respect to Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch," the judge wrote.

Veteran trial attorney Dan Webb, co-chairman of Chicago law firm Winston & Strawn, is heading Fox News' legal team in Dominion's defamation lawsuit.

Conservative networks and Fox News competitors OAN and Newsmax are also being sued by Dominion.

Last month, Davis threw out Newsmax's motion to dismiss the $1.6 billion Dominion lawsuit, ruling that at this stage, Dominion has a case for defamation.

"The Complaint supports the reasonable inference that Newsmax either knew its statements about Dominion's role in the election fraud were false or had a high degree of awareness that they were false," Davis wrote, adding that Newsmax "knew the allegations were probably false" but continued to promote them anyway.

"Newsmax possessed countervailing evidence of election fraud from the Department of Justice, election experts, and Dominion at the time it had been making its statements," the judge said.

Responding to the judge's decision, Newsmax issued a statement arguing that it "reported on both sides in the election dispute without making any claim about the results other than saying they were 'legal and final.'"

Dominion's lawsuit against OAN, filed in August 2021, accuses the network of spreading a "barrage of lies" that "caused—and continue to cause—severe damage to our company, customers, and employees."

Weighing in on how the defamation lawsuits are likely to play out, Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor who teaches constitutional law at Stetson University, told The Guardian that she believes Dominion has "a very strong case" against Fox News and against OAN.

"The reason Dominion is suing is because Fox and other right-wing news outlets repeated vicious lies that Dominion's voting machines stole the 2020 election from Trump for Biden. But all of these conspiracy theories about Dominion's machines were just pure bunk, and Fox as a news organization should have known that and not given this aspect of the Big Lie a megaphone," she said.

"What's particularly bad for Fox is Dominion asked them to stop and correct the record in real-time, and Fox persisted in spreading misrepresentations about the voting machine company," she added.

Smartmatic, a rival voting machine and election software company, has also brought billion-dollar lawsuits against Fox, OAN, and Newsmax.

A spokesperson for Fox News Media told Newsweek that "limiting the ability of the press to report freely on the American election process stands in stark contrast to the liberties on which this nation was founded."

"We are confident we will prevail in this case as the First Amendment is the foundation of our democracy and freedom of the press must be protected."

Newsweek also reached out to OAN and Newsmax for comment.

In a blow to Fox News, a Delaware judge ruled Friday that a jury should decide a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit claiming that the channel broadcast numerous false statements about voter fraud after the 2020 election.

Judge Eric Davis concluded that Dominion Voting Systems, which makes election equipment, had proven that Fox aired a series of false claims about the company, but that depositions, internal emails and text messages had not established whether Fox acted with “actual malice” by carrying statements on its air that it knew were false or likely so.

The evidence is “CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,” Davis wrote. Fox’s false statements included assertions that the company was controlled by Venezuela and implemented a bizarre algorithm to boost Democrats’ vote count under certain conditions, the judge said.

Some uncertainty remained about who at Fox authorized specific broadcasts and what those people knew or believed at the time, Davis continued.

“The Court does not weigh the evidence to determine who may have been responsible for publication and if such people acted with actual malice – these are genuine issues of material fact and therefore must be determined by a jury,” the judge wrote in his 81-page ruling.

Fox reacted to the ruling by insisting that the company is standing up for free-speech principles.

“This case is and always has been about the First Amendment protections of the media’s absolute right to cover the news. Fox will continue to fiercely advocate for the rights of free speech and a free press as we move into the next phase of these proceedings,” the company said.

A spokesperson for Dominion welcomed Davis’ ruling. “We are gratified by the Court’s thorough ruling soundly rejecting all of Fox’s arguments and defenses, and finding as a matter of law that their statements about Dominion are false. We look forward to going to trial,” the firm said.

Davis has set jury selection for April 13 and the trial to begin in April 17 in Delaware Superior Court in Wilmington, assuming that the sides don’t reach a financial settlement in the meantime.

The trial is expected to feature testimony from top Fox personalities including Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and others. The pre-trial litigation has already uncovered documents showing that the hosts and anchors did not believe many of the charges being leveled on their programs and that, in the wake of President Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 race, the company was desperately looking for ways to keep its Trump-supporting viewers from defecting to rivals like Newsmax and One America News.

Dominion filed the suit in 2021, contending that Fox gravely damaged the voting company’s reputation by repeatedly airing false charges about it even after being given details about the misstatements.

In recent court filings, Fox’s attorneys argued that the network wasn’t endorsing the claims leveled by Trump and allies like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, but was simply conveying newsworthy statements being issued by important public figures. The judge rejected those arguments.

“Fox dedicates little to its argument on falsity. It claims that ‘[t]he question is whether the press reported the “true” fact that the President made those allegations,’” Davis wrote. “However, falsity refers to the content of the statement, not the act of republishing it. Therefore, the question of falsity is whether the content of the allegations was true, not whether Fox truthfully republished the allegations.”

Davis also said Fox’s reports and interviews often aired the claims without rebuttal or context, further undercutting the network’s arguments.

“The evidence does not support that FNN conducted good-faith, disinterested reporting….FNN’s failure to reveal extensive contradicting evidence from the public sphere and Dominion itself indicates its reporting was not disinterested,” the judge wrote.