Marjorie Taylor Greene compares Fox lawsuit to Bud Light controversy

In the wake of Dominion Voting Systems settling its defamation lawsuit against Fox, Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia is lamenting that “you can’t criticize a voting machine company” without getting sued.

Greene, a supporter of former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen,” on Tuesday compared the network’s $787.5 million defamation lawsuit settlement with Dominion to restaurant reviews, product assessments, car critiques and the recent conservative meltdown over Bud Light sponsoring an Instagram post from transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

“We have food critics that criticize restaurants, consumer reports that criticizes [sic] products, auto critics that criticize automobiles, and conservative Americans have just wrapped up a week of nuking a beer company, but you can’t criticize a voting machine company or you’ll get sued for millions and millions of dollars,” Greene tweeted.

The congresswoman’s comment about “nuking a beer company” was apparently in reference to the recent effort to boycott Bud Light and parent company Anheuser-Busch, which was sparked by a single sponsored post from Mulvaney this month.

While there has been continuing conservative outrage over the post, one of hundreds that the company has sponsored from a multitude of influencers, the boycott has recently become complicated due to prominent figures like Donald Trump Jr. calling for it to end.

There do not appear to be any obvious connections between the Bud Light controversy, consumer product reports, restaurant or car reviews and defamation claims in lawsuits. Dominion accused Fox of spreading substantively false claims that damaged its reputation and finances, rather than engaging in mere “criticism.”

“Fox has admitted to telling lies about Dominion that caused enormous damage to my company, our employees and our customers,” Dominion CEO John Poulos told Newsweek in a statement. “Nothing can ever make up for that.”

Nick Dyer, communications director for Greene, declined to comment when contacted via email by Newsweek.

Fox’s decision to settle with Dominion for a massive $787.5 million was announced just before the $1.6 billion suit was set to go to trial, with a jury having been selected only hours earlier.

Although the complete terms of the settlement have not been disclosed, Fox Corporation said in a statement that it acknowledged “certain claims” in the suit were false. It was not clear, however, that the settlement would result in Fox News issuing any on-air apologies for spreading false election fraud claims.

“If Fox is not required under this settlement to tell viewers that its programs and personalities willfully fed them lies, that would be a huge missed opportunity to start to repair the faith in elections that Fox helped to destroy,” Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist at progressive think tank Public Citizen, said in a statement emailed to Newsweek.

Additional Dominion lawsuits concerning the 2020 election are pending against Newsmax, One America News Network, MyPillow founder Mike Lindell and former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.

Fox is also facing a $2.7 billion defamation suit from fellow voting machine company Smartmatic.