Court exhibits in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News show that some top Fox News executives were skeptical about what was said on its shows after the 2020 election and even after President Biden’s inauguration.
On January 21, 2021, a day after Inauguration Day, Fox News Chairman Rupert Murdoch said, “We’re still getting mud thrown at us. Is the Election Stolen and Fox’s Prestige Votes on Jan. 6 “Undisputed?” significant chance of spoiling the outcome?’
“Maybe Sean (Hannity) and Laura (Ingraham) went too far,” Murdoch wrote. “It’s good that Sean said he’s disappointed in Trump, but what did he tell his viewers?”
In another email exchange, on Nov. 17, 2020, former President Donald Trump’s former attorney Sidney Powell told Fox News host Tucker Carlson, “I emailed you testimony today. More evidence is coming in.” But Carlson was skeptical.
“You keep telling our viewers that software has changed millions of votes. I hope you can prove it soon,” he told Powell. “You convinced them that Trump was going to win. Unless you have concrete evidence of fraud on this scale, it’s cruel and reckless to keep saying that.”
On November 22, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s attorney at the time, issued a statement saying Powell was not an attorney for either the Trump campaign or Trump. However, he continued to appear on Fox News and Fox Business Network for several days until December 10, the Washington Post noted. Smartmatic, another voting software company, has sent a letter to Fox News and other far-right networks demanding they retract what they say are defamatory statements about Smartmatic’s voting equipment. Dominion’s lawsuit against Fox began a few days later.
Dominion also sued Powell separately for $1.3 billion.
Dominion, which sells electronic voting equipment used in several states in the 2020 election, is suing Fox News and its parent company Fox Corporation, alleging in its brief that “Fox executives at all levels … have conspiracy theories about Dominion.”
In its filing, Dominion cited testimony released by the court on Tuesday. In one email released Tuesday, Murdoch wrote to Fox News president Suzanne Scott on Nov. 8, 2020, five days after the election: “CNN’s energy is good! I don’t think our viewers want to see it.”
to November 7, Mr. Biden It was designed by media representatives win the election.
Dominion’s argument is that Fox News executives and some of its anchors knew the outlandish conspiracy claims championed by Trump allies and lawyers on its shows were false, but they aired them anyway so as not to alienate their own conservatives. audience.
“Thanks to today’s filings, Dominion is once again criminally charged with using more misrepresentations and false information in a PR campaign to smear FOX News and trample on freedom of speech and the press,” Fox said in a statement to CBS News on Tuesday evening. “We already know that they will say and do anything to win this case, but to misrepresent and even misrepresent quotes to the highest levels of our company is truly beyond the pale.”
In its counterclaim, Fox argued that Dominion’s lawsuit should be dismissed because the company was only suing for “punitive damages.” [Fox News Network] for reporting on one of the biggest stories of the day — allegations that the current president of the United States and his vice president were involved in fraud in the 2020 election,” the Fox filing said. “These allegations themselves were news.”
Scott MacFarlane, Si Mandler, Julia Kimani Burnham and Caitlin Yilek contributed to this report.