After settling three defamation lawsuits since May 2022, San Diego-based One America News isn’t quite ready for a fourth.
Chip Babcock, lead attorney for OAN owner Herring Networks, said Thursday that Dominion Voting Systems might not expect a deal in its own multibillion-dollar suit against the far right network over its 2020 election lies.
“Herring Networks is not currently seeking, nor has it sought in the past, a settlement with Dominion,” Babcock told Times of San Diego. “There is nothing under consideration at this time.”
That detail was among few he could share in the wake of OAN’s surprise settlement Tuesday with another election tech company — Smartmatic.
Charles “Chip” Babcock, a First Amendment expert, said he couldn’t discuss any of the terms of the settlement. But he carefully parried a few of my questions.
He revealed that the Smartmatic settlement has been in the works for “several months” and that OAN won’t post a story about the accord. (OAN founder Robert Herring didn’t respond to a request for comment.)
The Texas-based litigator who’s represented CNN, Fox News, Oprah Winfrey and George W. Bush said his role in the settlement was as “lead attorney and negotiator.”
Babcock declined to say which side initiated the Smartmatic talks.
When asked if OAN would post an apology as part of the settlement, he repeated that he could reveal no terms of the agreement but said: “You will just have to monitor the OAN website to answer this question.”
In its original November 2021 complaint filed in Washington, D.C., federal court, Smartmatic said of the defamations: “The first time it happened could be a mistake. The second, third, fourth and 50th times it happened were intentional choices.”
The suit went on: “OANN had every opportunity to do the right thing after the 2020 election for president and vice president of the United States. It could have reported
the truth. Instead, OANN chose to do the wrong thing every time. It reported a lie.”
Now every mention of Smartmatic but one has been scrubbed from the outlet’s website.
Settlement talks, if they began in February, overlapped furious disputes over discovery — the sharing of information before trial.
On April 2, Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya — handling discovery issues on behalf of Judge Carl Nichols — set a discovery hearing for 2 p.m. April 23 in Courtroom 5.
Her minute order said, in part: “The parties shall continue to meet and confer to attempt to resolve any pending discovery disputes and then file an amended joint status report by April 12, 2024.”
That status report included a chart “updated to identify which disputes have been resolved, which disputes the parties are currently attempting to resolve, and which disputes have reached an impasse.”
Now that impasse is no more.
But out-of-state attorneys new to the case — applying for court permission to “appear pro hac vic” — may not get back their $100 application fee.
They include Andrew B. Johnson (fee paid by Atlantic Council of the United States) and Alyssa A. Moscarino (fee paid by Smartmatic).
Herring Networks wanted to bring aboard star lawyers Joshua A. Romero, Sean F. Gallagher, Jamila M. Brinso and Christina M. Vitale — all of the Jackson Walker firm where Babcock is a partner.
Before the final four sought entry into the case, Herring Networks had been represented by at least 16 attorneys. Six dropped out between April and June 2023.
Almost exactly a year ago, Dominion Voting Systems settled its suit against Fox News for nearly $790 million. You can read about it on One America News.
