New emails uncovered in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against Fox News reveal Rupert Murdoch believed hosts on the network were reason rioters stormed the Capital on January 6th.
The election machine company released more than 6,500 pages of exhibits Tuesday, and while many are heavily redacted, some emails and text messages show the behind-the-scenes feelings of Murdoch, as well as Fox Corp. board member and former Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan.
In an email to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott on January 21st, 2021, Murdoch asked “Is it ‘unarguable that high-profile Fox voices fed the story that the election was stolen and that January 6th an important chance to have the result overturned”? Maybe Sean (Hannity) and Laura (Ingraham) went too far.”
Murdoch then noted that Hannity had privately shared his disdain for Trump, but questioned “what did he tell his viewers?”
In a separate email exchange, Ryan told Murdoch “the sooner we can put down the echoes of falsehoods from our side, the faster we can get onto principled loyal opposition. I truly hope our contributors, along with Tucker (Carlson), Laura (Ingraham), and Sean (Hannity) get that and execute.”
Murdoch responded by saying “everything changed” on January 6th, adding Trump’s businesses were “ruined” before questioning if he could resign with the understanding that Mike Pence would pardon him.
“The emails, texts, and deposition testimony speak for themselves. We welcome all scrutiny of our evidence because it all leads to the same place — Fox knowingly spread lies causing enormous damage to an American company,” Dominion said in a statement.
In response, Fox News has continually pointed towards protections afforded in the First Amendment, alleging that Dominion has “cherry-picked” and “misrepresented” the contents of the emails and text messages.
“Thanks to today’s filings, Dominion has been caught red-handed again using more distortions and misinformation in their PR campaign to smear FOX News and trample on free speech and freedom of the press,” a Fox News spokesperson told Barrett News Media. “We already know they will say and do anything to try to win this case, but to twist and even misattribute quotes to the highest levels of our company is truly beyond the pale.”
