A person walks past Fox News Headquarters at the News Corporation building on May 3, 2022 in New York City.
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Rupert Murdoch and Fox News hosts express distrust of former President Donald Trump’s false election fraud claims, according to published evidence from the Dominion Voting System’ $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox Corp and its cable networks.
In court papers filed on Thursday, text messages and testimony from the deposit shows that Fox executives and TV personalities were skeptical of claims that the election between Joe Biden, the Democrat, the winner, and Trump, the Republican, had been falsified. cheat.
The release after months of discovery and deposit remains private until Thursday, when the companies file court papers before a Delaware judge laying out their case by case and disclosing the evidence gathered. recently. The documents were released hours after authorities in Georgia released a small portion of a grand jury report related to a separate criminal investigation on Thursday. Trump accused of election interference in that state.
Dominion sued Fox and its right-wing cable networks, Fox News and Fox Business, arguing that these networks and their hosts made false claims that their voting machines were rigged results of the 2020 election.
Fox Corp President Rupert Murdoch said in an email on November 19, days after the election, regarding statements Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, made on Fox News.
Top Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham expressed skepticism about what Sydney Powell, Lawyers for Trump who has vigorously promoted electoral fraud claims, also spoke at the time.
“Sydney Powell is lying,” Tucker Carlson said in a message to his producer. Meanwhile, Laura Ingraham said in a text message to Carlson: “Sidney is a total jerk. No one will ever work with her. Neither will Rudy.”
“It offends me I can’t believe it. Our viewers are good people and they believe it,” Carlson replied, according to court filings. These messages arrived in the weeks following the election.
Rudolph Giuliani and Sidney Powell, attorneys for President Donald Trump, conduct a news conference at the Republican National Committee on lawsuits related to the outcome of the 2020 presidential election on Thursday, Oct. November 19, 2020.
Tom Williams | CQ-Check-in, Inc. | beautiful pictures
Dominion said in court papers that Fox acknowledged that the Hannity and Lou Dobbs shows did not “challenge the narrative” that Dominion was responsible for election fraud or for producing inaccurate results.
On Thursday, both Fox Corp and Fox News also filed their own summary judgment requests. Fox Corp, which worked to get the case dismissed by the court, said in court documents that after a year of discovery, records in the case show it “had no role in the creates and publishes challenged statements – all of which air on the Fox Business Network or the Fox News Channel.”
In recent months Murdoch, like his son Lachlan Murdoch, CEO of Fox Corp., deposition to face as part of the lawsuit.
Fox News again said in court documents that it “has fulfilled its commitment to provide complete information and to comment fairly” on allegations that Dominion rigged the election against Trump.
“There will be a lot of noise and confusion created by Dominion and its opportunistic private equity holders, but at the heart of this case remains freedom of the press and freedom of expression, which are fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan,” Fox said in a statement released Thursday.
A spokesperson for Dominion did not comment and its private equity owner, Staple Street Capital, did not respond to comment.
“Here, however, overwhelming direct evidence demonstrates Fox’s knowledge of falsehoods, not just ‘doubts,'” Dominion said in court papers Thursday, pointing to made many defamatory statements.
Dominion points to the audience backlash Fox News faced on election night 2020 calling Arizona for Joe Biden, then seeing competing right-wing networks like Newsmax take advantage of the news. audiences.
Dominion’s findings indicate that hosts including Carlson, Ingraham and Sean Hannity understand “the threat to them personally.” Dominion points to messages Carlson sent to his producer on November 5, “We’ve worked so hard to build what we’ve got. Those assholes are ruining credibility. ours. That makes me angry.”
The case is being closely watched by First Amendment experts and watchdogs. The defamation lawsuits often focus on a falsehood. In this case, Dominion cites a long list of examples of Fox TV hosts making false statements even after they were proven untrue. Media companies are generally widely protected by the First Amendment.
These cases are usually resolved out of court or dismissed. But the Delaware judge overseeing the case dismissed such claims. Testing is expected to begin in mid-April.
Last week, during a status meeting, Dominion’s attorney raised concerns that some evidence, such as board meeting minutes and search results for individual drives, remained not produced by Fox and its television networks.
