New court documents released on Monday in Dominion Voting System’s defamation lawsuit against Fox News have revealed that Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of Fox News, admitted under oath that top hosts promoted false election claims at the cable news network.
According to Mediate, despite evidence that many hosts privately knew the claims made by then-President Donald Trump and his surrogates to be false, they were promoted on air. Murdoch acknowledged that Jeanine Pirro endorsed the claims, Lou Dobbs supported them “a lot,” and Sean Hannity did so “a bit.”
Murdoch also admitted that he could have told Fox to stop inviting Trump lawyers Sydney Powell and Rudy Giuliani on the air but chose not to do so. The documents further allege that Murdoch helped the Trump campaign by providing Biden television ads to Jared Kushner before they were run on Fox News.
Initially, Fox News was reportedly trying to tamp down election denialism. Still, after traditional Fox News viewers were unhappy with its coverage, Murdoch met with Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott and Lachlan Murdoch to strategize how to win back viewers. No longer booking Democrats was allegedly part of the strategy.
Fox News issued a statement refuting Dominion’s lawsuit and contended that it infringed on the First Amendment. The statement maintained that the lawsuit was more focused on sensationalism than legal and factual rigor and that Dominion’s attempts to malign Fox for reporting on allegations made by a sitting US President were evident.
The Dominion lawsuit against Fox News seeks $1.6 billion in damages, but more than half a billion dollars have slashed the damages demand after their expert debunked its implausible claims. According to Fox News, Dominion’s summary judgment motion took an extreme, unsupported view of defamation law that would prevent journalists from basic reporting.
