It’s not just Georgia grand jurors this week who rejected the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.
We learned from an explosive legal filing made public on Thursday that evidence suggests top Fox News hosts and executives didn’t believe it, either.
Yet, as the brief from voting equipment company Dominion Voting Systems in its multibillion-dollar defamation case against Fox News argues, the network still promoted false claims of election fraud, with conspiracy theories that Dominion machines were somehow used to steal the election from Trump. It’s worth reading the lengthy filing in its entirety, which begins by citing a communication from host Tucker Carlson to his producer in November 2020 that bluntly states, referring to a top election denier and MAGA lawyer, “Sidney Powell is lying.” It gets crazier from there.
The voting company’s cache of damning statements against the network would surely be powerful evidence in front of a jury.
Dominion’s brief was filed in the Delaware Superior Court last month in support of its motion for summary judgment. That is, the company is arguing that its liability claims against Fox News are so strong that it should win even before trial. Dominion’s lawyers concede that it’s unusual to go for that argument in a defamation case, given the plaintiffs’ heavy burden. They note that plaintiffs usually have to show actual malice — that defendants knew or recklessly disregarded the truth — by inference, because it’s rare to find direct evidence of a defendant knowingly pushing false information.
But this case is different, Dominion argues, alleging in the brief that there is extensive direct evidence against Fox that the network kept airing unhinged election claims while knowing better. That’s one of the points that leads the voting company to argue that a trial isn’t needed for Dominion to win, because the company says “no reasonable juror could find in Fox’s favor.”
Whether the…
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