Newsmax serving as a conduit for pro-Trump election fraud conspiracy theories continues to come back to bite it. In December, it issued a statement disavowing right-wing attacks on voting-tech companies Dominion and Smartmatic in an attempt to avoid getting sued by the companies. Now, it has apologized to Dominion official Eric Coomer in an April 30 statement published on the Newsmax website:
Since Election Day, various guests, attorneys, and hosts on Newsmax have offered opinions and claims about Dr. Eric Coomer, the Director of Product Strategy and Security at Dominion Voting Systems.
Newsmax would like to clarify its coverage of Dr. Coomer and note that while Newsmax initially covered claims by President Trump’s lawyers, supporters and others that Dr. Coomer played a role in manipulating Dominion voting machines, Dominion voting software, and the final vote counts in the 2020 presidential election, Newsmax subsequently found no evidence that such allegations were true. Many of the states whose results were contested by the Trump campaign after the November 2020 election have conducted extensive recounts and audits, and each of these states certified the results as legal and final.
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.
On behalf of Newsmax, we would like to apologize for any harm that our reporting of the allegations against Dr. Coomer may have caused to Dr. Coomer and his family. For more on this, please go to our website at Newsmax.com, and read “Facts About Dominion, Smartmatic You Should Know.”
The statement doesn’t say it, but it’s a part of a settlement of a lawsuit Coomer filed against right-wing personalities and outlets for pushing those false claims; as a result of this and other undisclosed terms, Coomer has dropped Newsmax from the lawsuit.
Newsmax’s settlement puts pressure on the other defendants in the lawsuit, including Joe Oltmann, the main source of the apparently false claims against Coomer. It also puts pressure on WorldNetDaily, even though it’s not named in the lawsuit; WND columnist James Zumwalt uncritically repeated Oltmann’s claims in a Dec. 2 column that remains inexplicably live and unedited on the WND website despite the legal jeopardy it has put WND into.