(Wilmington) In the 2020 presidential election, the Fox News Network gave former President Donald Trump’s allies a platform to defend false allegations of voter fraud. However, the animators, between them, expressed doubts and even made fun of their megaphones.
This is revealed by new court filings in a defamation lawsuit brought by a company whose voting systems were regularly criticized on air.
Private exchanges between Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham and other big names on the channel — including Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch — show a chasm between what the network was saying on prime time. and the doubts its star hosts asserted off camera.
“Sidney Powell is lying” about having evidence of voter fraud, Mr. Carlson said by text on November 16, 2020 to a Fox News producer, referring to one of Donald Trump’s lawyers.
Mme Ingraham texted Tucker Carlson saying that Mr.me Powell is “completely bonkers”, adding that “no one would work with her or Rudy”, referring to former New York mayor and Mr Trump supporter Rudy Giuliani.
These and other internal communications were included in a redacted brief filed Thursday by attorneys for Dominion Voting Systems, which is suing Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corporation, for $1.6 billion.
In a deposition, host Sean Hannity said he “didn’t believe for a second” Sidney Powell’s claims.
For his part, Rupert Murdoch wrote an email on November 19, in which he described what he had seen in a press conference by Mr. Giuliani and Mr.me Powell as being “really crazy stuff. And damaging.”
Dominion’s legal case rests on its belief that Fox News employees deliberately amplified false claims that the company tampered with votes in the 2020 election and that Fox provided a platform for guests to make false statements and defamatory.
Fox attorneys argued in a counterclaim unsealed Thursday that the lawsuit is an attack on the First Amendment. They said Dominion advanced ‘new libel theories’ and sought ‘stunning’ damages aimed at grabbing headlines, chilling protected speech and enriching Dominion’s private equity owner , Staple Street Capital Partners.
“Dominion has brought this lawsuit to punish FNN for reporting one of the biggest stories of the moment – allegations by the incumbent President of the United States and his supporters that the 2020 election was affected by fraud. “, says the network.
“The very fact of these allegations was newsworthy. »
Fox’s attorneys noted that Mr. Carlson repeatedly questioned Ms.me Powell in his shows. “When we kept pushing, she got mad and told us to stop contacting her,” Tucker Carlson told viewers on Nov. 19, 2020.
If either side can persuade Superior Court Judge Eric Davis to grant summary judgment in their favor, the case will end without a jury trial. Otherwise, the trial is expected to begin in mid-April.