Top executives and news hosts at Fox News privately shared they did not buy into then-President Donald Trump’s allegations of 2020 election fraud, despite giving airtime to many of those same false claims, according to a court filing in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against the news network.
“Privately, Fox’s hosts and executives knew that Donald Trump lost the election and that he needed to concede,” the filing reads. “But Fox viewers heard a different story — repeatedly.”
Dominion lawsuit:Dominion Voting sues Fox for $1.6 billion over false 2020 election fraud claims
Top Fox hosts didn’t believe election fraud claims
- Host Tucker Carlson said as early as Nov. 16, 2020, that Trump ally Sidney Powell was “lying” about election fraud, according to the filing. He texted an individual whose name was redacted that her claims, made without evidence, were “shockingly reckless.”
- In a deposition, host Sean Hannity said of Powell’s election fraud narrative that he “did not believe it for one second,” according to the filing. But in the meantime, he told his audience that “it will be impossible to ever know the true, fair, accurate election results, that’s a fact,” the filing says.
- Host Laura Ingraham told Carlson that Powell is “a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy,” referring to former New York mayor and Trump supporter Rudy Giuliani. Carlson replied that he found Powell’s lies “unbelievably offensive” because their “viewers are good people and they believe it,” according to the filing.
Carlson: Trump a ‘demonic force’
On Jan. 6, 2021, the day the U.S. Capitol was stormed by a pro-Trump mob as Congress sought to certify the results of the 2020 election, Carlson texted his producer that Trump is “a demonic force, a destroyer. But he’s not going to destroy us.”
Executives didn’t believe claims either
- Fox Corporation chair Rupert Murdoch called the false voter fraud claims “really crazy stuff” and “damaging” in a text following a press conference by Powell and Giuliani in November 2020, according to the filing.
- Murdoch also told Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott: “It’s been suggested our prime time three should independently or together say something like ‘the election is over and Joe Biden won,'” and that such a statement “would go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election stolen,” the filing says.
Read the filing
What Dominion says
Dominion Voting Systems, which sells electronic voting hardware and software, in March 2021, filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corporation, for allegedly deliberately making and amplifying false claims about Dominion and the 2020 election.
The company, which makes election software, asserts that the “lies were good for Fox’s business,” and that legal action followed repeated demands for retractions.
“The disinformation campaign waged against our company has caused us severe damage and undermined trust in American democratic institutions,” Dominion CEO John Poulos said at the time the lawsuit was filed. “These lies also have threatened the personal safety of our employees and customers. No amount of money will repair the damage done.”
What Fox News says
Fox’s attorneys argued in a counterclaim unsealed Thursday that the lawsuit and its “novel defamation theories” are an assault on the First Amendment. They called the $1.6 billion damage figure “staggering” and aimed at generating headlines.
“Dominion brought this lawsuit to punish FNN (Fox News Network) for reporting on one of the biggest stories of the day — allegations by the sitting President of the United States and his surrogates that the 2020 election was affected by fraud,” the counterclaim reads. “The very fact of those allegations was newsworthy.”
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Contributing: Associated Press
Story Credit: usatoday.com