Rupert Murdoch is charged in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News today and Friday for bolstering allegations that the company was involved in rigging the 2020 presidential election.
Murdoch is the latest high-profile Fox personality to be questioned under oath in the discovery phase of the case, with CEO Lachlan Murdoch and Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott also indicted, along with personalities such as Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Maria Bartiromo.
According to NPR, Murdoch is being interviewed on Fox premises in Los Angeles. A prosecution hearing scheduled for last month has been postponed.
Dominion and Fox News each sought summary judgment in the case this week, asking a Delaware judge to rule in their favor ahead of trial, which is expected to begin in April. These apps are still under lock and key.
Dominion claims that after the election, in which Fox News became the first television network to call the state of Arizona about Joe Biden, the network tried to “win back viewers” by “associating Dominion with its false history of voter fraud.” The company claims Fox News figures continued to highlight the election claims even after warning the network that they were false and unfounded. More specifically, Dominion pointed to testimony from Bartiromo and Lou Dobbs, who were both guests, as well as attorney Sidney Powell. Dobbs’ Fox Business Show was canceled in early 2021.
In a statement, a Dominion spokesperson said: “Fox knowingly spread lies about Dominion at the highest level and caused massive and irreparable damage. Instead of acting responsibly and showing remorse, Fox doubled down by publicly stating that they are proud of their Dominion-related coverage. We are focused on holding Fox accountable and are confident that the truth will ultimately prevail.”
Dominion also filed a lawsuit against Fox Corp. and claimed that the elder Murdoch did not believe Trump’s allegations of voter fraud, but “nevertheless encouraged air figures to perpetuate these baseless allegations.”
Fox lawyers, meanwhile, defended the network’s reporting as protected under the First Amendment because it was a story solely in the public interest. More specifically, the network says that in one instance cited by Dominion, Bartiromo merely summarized what Powell had alleged before allowing her to expand on the allegations. The network’s lawyers also noted that one of Dobbs’ tweets, in which he referred to the election as “Cyber Pearl Harbor” and linked it to a document about Dominion, was a “hyperbolic opinion.”
Fox News previously said on the matter, “There is nothing more correct than reporting on the President of the United States and his lawyers making allegations of voter fraud.”
Dominion must prove that the network acted with actual malice or reckless disregard for the truth, which has traditionally been a high detection limit for defamation prosecutors when it affects the mental state of suspects. His lawyers have focused much of his discovery on an effort to obtain emails and other office communications to show what was known to news workers at the time.
Both sides in the case are seeking sanctions against the other. Fox News claims electronic messages from senior Dominion executives were corrupted. Dominion itself claims to have removed evidence from top executives such as Scott and figures such as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.
A spokesperson for Fox Corp. declined to comment on Murdoch’s testimony.
Author: Ted Johnson
Source: Deadline
Mary Crossley is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. She is a seasoned journalist who is dedicated to delivering the latest news to her readers. With a keen sense of what’s important, Mary covers a wide range of topics, from politics to lifestyle and everything in between.
