Less than six weeks before the start of the trial for Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion libel lawsuit, Fox News on Tuesday released several hundred pages of documents — including redacted depositions from its hosts and executives — to supporting a lengthy email outlining how the embattled network plans to defend its coverage of the 2020 election.
“Through today’s statements, Dominion has been caught in the act of using more distortions and misinformation in its public relations campaign to smear FOX News and trample free speech and freedom of the press. “, said the network in a press release accompanying the documents. “We already know they will say and do anything to try to win this case, but misrepresenting and even misattributing quotes to the highest levels of our company is truly unconscionable.”
The PDF package is just the latest public salvo in Dominion v. Fox, as both sides have now filed lengthy and thorough motions for summary judgment. A Delaware judge will rule on those motions later this month, but such a complex, high-stakes First Amendment case is almost certain to end with a jury — unless Fox lives up to the expectations of legal experts and negotiate some sort of settlement.
Fox’s Tuesday filings, including nearly 20 separate “exhibitions“, was essentially a backlash to the Dominion documents filed last month in support of summary judgment. In these, Rupert Murdoch himself admitted in his deposition that some Fox News hosts had “approvedthe story of the election stolen from the air, despite privately expressed reservations about continuing to fuel the lie without evidence.
The network’s sprawling and multifaceted defense is described in the email shared with the press on Tuesday.
It highlights the pushback that hosts like Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson have pitted against Dominion conspiracy theorist guests (primarily Sydney Powell and Rudy Giuliani) both live and in private, demanding evidence of any kind. He suggests via internal Dominion messages and memos that the voting systems company was not materially harmed by the Fox reporting and has continued to add customers ever since. And it pisses off the suggestion that Fox executives were worried about losing ratings, and purports to demonstrate how several comments from Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch were taken out of context.
But it also doubles doubts about the security of electronic voting machines like Dominion’s.
“Since their arrival two decades ago, electronic voting machines have been the subject of significant controversy and public scrutiny…Dominion’s own employees have expressed serious concerns about the security of its machines the statement reads, using several emails from Dominion employees to weave a story of self-doubt and fears in the Denver-based company.