In May 2022, when San Diego-based One America News settled a defamation suit brought by two Fulton County election workers, the far-right network posted numerous corrections.
“Georgia officials have concluded that there was no widespread voter fraud by election workers who counted ballots at the State Farm Arena in November 2020,” an OAN announcer said on air.
Similar concessions of fact were posted on OAN’s Twitter and Facebook accounts.
But last week, in settling another defamation suit, OAN went radio silent. A search of its website doesn’t show the name of the plaintiff, Eric Coomer.
As first reported Tuesday by Law360, a 180-word August 30 filing said Coomer, OAN parent Herring Networks and chief White House correspondent Chanel Rion jointly agreed to dismiss the case brought by Coomer, a former Dominion Voting Systems executive.
Coomer and the defendants “have fully and finally settled the disputes among them concerning Plaintiff’s claims against Herring Networks … and Chanel Rion only,” the filing said.
(The case proceeds against several others, however, including Donald J. Trump for President Inc., Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani.)
Coomer’s lawyers didn’t reveal terms of the settlement in a case filed in Colorado state court.
The lawsuit alleged that OAN, Rion and others “elevated Dr. Coomer into the national spotlight, invaded his privacy, threatened his security and fundamentally defamed his reputation across this country.”
With President Trump and others amplifying the reports (his YouTube channel still carries the OAN show) , Coomer received numerous death threats and went into hiding.
The defamation traces to a Conservative Daily Podcast by Joseph Oltmann, who said he had “infiltrated an Antifa conference call” in which a man named Eric said something like “Don’t worry about the election, Trump is not gonna win. I made f-ing sure of that.”
Coomer’s suit said: “Afterwards, Oltmann’s alleged efforts to identify the unknown speakers of this purported call were limited to googling ‘Eric,’ ‘Dominion’ and ‘Denver, Colorado.’
“With this, Oltmann claimed he identified Dr. Coomer and Dominion Voting Systems Inc. At no point has Oltmann contacted Dr. Coomer to confirm his involvement in this purported call.”
OAN and Rion — in a series called “Dominion-izing the Vote” — made false allegations of voter fraud, the suit said.
“They had no credible evidence of any ‘Antifa conference call,’ that Dr. Coomer was part of this purported call or that Dr. Coomer committed election fraud,” the suit said.
“Instead, like other Defendants, OANN and Rion knowingly and recklessly published false statements about Dr. Coomer to support a preconceived conspiracy that the election was fraudulent.”
Herring Networks still faces multibillion-dollar lawsuits filed by Dominion and another election tech company — Smartmatic.
Businessinsider.com on Tuesday noted that Newsmax, another far-right outlet, settled Coomer’s claims against it in April 2021 and issued a public apology at the time.
“It was the first settlement from a news organization in a defamation lawsuit filed over 2020 election conspiracy theories,” the website said.
In a statement at the time, Newsmax said: “There are several facts that our viewers should be aware of. 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. 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.”
But Newsmax removed the apology from its site, Business Insider said. OAN also deleted its concessions that Georgia workers committed no fraud in the 2020 election count.
On Jan. 20, 2021, in response to a Business Insider report, OAN’s Rion scoffed.
“Not a single piece of my reporting on Dominion (“Dominion-izing the Vote”) has been retracted by @OANN,” she tweeted.
Like her employer, Rion has been mum on the new Coomer settlement.
