WILMINGTON, Delaware — Abby Grossberg, ex-Fox News producer, said she recently found other evidence relevant to Dominion Voting Systems’ libel lawsuit against her former employer and plans to turn it over to court.
Grossberg, who worked as a senior producer for hosts Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson, alleged in a new affidavit obtained by NBC News that Fox’s attorneys ignored repeated reminders about an extra cellphone in her possession and did not use it. did not search during the court-ordered discovery.
In the statement, Grossberg said she repeatedly told Fox attorneys that she had an inoperable company-issued cell phone that she used while covering the 2020 election. said to hang on to the device but never searched it or copied its files, as they did with his other phones, according to the statement.
Grossberg was fired in March after filing a lawsuit claiming Fox attorneys coerced her into giving misleading testimony in the Dominion case and became a scapegoat for 2020 election coverage by the network. Fox says she was fired for leaking inside information.
Grossberg, in the new affidavit, said a forensic expert recently removed two recordings from the broken phone that she recorded using an app called Otter, which simultaneously records and creates text transcripts of files. sound. The recordings, which she details in the affidavit and the audio of which was shared with NBC News, are of telephone interviews she participated in with Bartiromo: one with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and another with two sources who claimed to know about Dominion Voter Fraud.
She said she used Otter as a normal part of her job as a producer. Recordings are saved in the Otter app and can also be shared.
Grossberg’s attorney, Gerry Filippatos, said the statement would be filed with the Delaware court as early as Tuesday, the day the trial is due to begin.
“Abby Grossberg is ready to do her part to see justice done; let those who are authorized and obligated to speak the truth and guide others to the truth do just that. As soon as possible and feasible, Ms. Grossberg will continue to set the record straight by telling all she knows to those who need to know,” Filippatos said in a statement.
During pretrial appearances last week, Dominion attorneys played other recordings made by Grossberg as a producer, including one with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, which Dominion said it received from Fox this week. former.
That, along with confusion over the current role of the News Corp chairman. Rupert Murdoch at Fox News appeared to frustrate Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis. Murdoch is also the executive chairman of Fox News.
He chastised Fox’s attorneys for withholding evidence and not being forthright with the court, and he said the company should foot the bill if further depositions were needed. He also said he was considering appointing a special master to investigate the attorneys’ legal misconduct over whether Fox misrepresented their discovery efforts.
“Abby Grossberg is not Dominion’s problem. It’s not my problem. Abby Grossberg is a Fox problem,” Davis said during last week’s hearing.
“It may not show, but I’m very uncomfortable,” he added.
Dominion did not respond to requests for comment.
“FOX News has met its discovery obligations,” a Fox News spokesperson said in a statement.
During last week’s hearing, Fox attorney Michael Skokna said Grossberg did not disclose the existence of Otter’s tapes.
In her new statement, Grossberg said Skokna’s claim was “absolutely false” and that she spoke about Otter to Fox’s attorneys in August.
“I proactively and specifically told Fox News attorneys that I used an app called Otter for work purposes during the relevant time,” she said, adding that a Fox attorney told her. then asked to explain how Otter works.
In a filing dated Monday, attorneys for Fox added that while they were unaware of Grossberg’s Otter tapes, they had shared some of Grossberg’s Otter transcripts found via email. Giuliani’s transcript was shared with Dominion 10 months ago, they said.
Grossberg said she recently had a forensic expert look at the old phone and the expert found the tapes of the two interviews. Grossberg’s attorney shared the audio with NBC News.
The first recording, made on November 7, 2020, according to Grossberg’s affidavit, was of a phone interview Bartiromo and Grossberg conducted with Cruz to discuss a planned appearance on the show. Cruz is heard discussing the voter fraud allegations — including an irregularity in Michigan, which uses Dominion machines in most counties — but stresses the need for facts and evidence.
“It’s up to the legal team carrying these cases to establish the facts. And it just can’t be, you know, someone tweeted that. It has to be demonstrable facts that can be presented with evidence, because that’s what a court is going to look at. Not just an allegation, but real facts,” Cruz said on the recording. “And hopefully when Rudy comes on the show tomorrow , he will know some of these facts.”
Cruz did not respond to a request for comment.
Grossberg said in his affidavit that the second tape, made on November 13, 2020, was of a background interview Grossberg and Bartiromo conducted with a banker named Doug Anderson, the CEO of Wall Street Capital Partners, and a male source who was granted anonymity. participate.
The men discuss conspiratorial claims about Dominion voting machines; Bartiromo promises to help “expose as much as possible”, while Grossberg insists on more information.
Anderson did not respond to a request for comment.
Grossberg said in the new statement that after she was fired last month, Fox asked her to return her company-issued ID badge and cellphone. She said she complied, but added that she forgot she still had the old broken device at the time.
Chris Mattei, a lawyer who sued conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for defamation on behalf of the families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre in Connecticut, said Dominion attorneys may well take advantage of the situation.
“The best thing Dominion attorneys could think of is the extent to which they can use any evidence or conceal as affirmative evidence something like consciousness of guilt,” he said, especially if Grossberg is testifying for Dominion. .
Dominion included Grossberg on a list of proposed witnesses filed with the court.
“Sometimes evidence of a cover-up or bad faith in litigation — like that evidence itself — a jury can find quite persuasive,” he said.
Grossberg has asked to intervene in the Delaware libel case, but the judge has yet to rule on the matter.