Fox News will pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million per settlement conditions that have resulted in the dismissal of Dominion’s lawsuit against Fox News.
This keeps the case against Fox from going to trial, but the settlement came too late to prevent the uncovering of highly damaging texts and emails that have provided an embarrassing behind-the-scenes look at how Fox News anchors and hosts knew that they were indeed spreading lies on-air about the 2020 US presidential election.
To prove that Fox News hosts knowingly broadcast lies to their viewers, Dominion subpoened access to texts and emails that supported the company’s claims that Fox News knew that its statements about Dominion’s role in “election fraud” were false.
Fox News heard from experts such as Ben Hovland, a member of the US Election Assistance Commision, who informed the network that the 2020 Election was “the most secure election we’ve ever had.”
J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan’s Center for Computer Security & Society, also informed Fox News that there “is absolutely no evidence… that Dominion Voting Machines changed any votes in this election.”
Before the case was settled, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis, who would have presided over the trial, stated that “Fox continued to promote known lies on its broadcasts, websites, social media accounts and subscription service platforms.”
The content of the text messages and emails proved that fact. After the election, several Fox News hosts discussed Donald Trump, Fox management, and the fact that there was no 2020 election fraud.
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson (who has been fired from Fox in the wake of the settlement) texted a producer on November 5th, “What [Donald Trump is] good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”
On January 4th, just days before the treasonous January 6th insurrection, Carlson texted the same producer, “I hate him [Trump] passionately. We’re all pretending that we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There really isn’t an upside to Trump.”
On November 16th, Carlson (using expletives) called Sidney Powell, one of the lead Trump attorneys on the case to discredit the election results, a “liar”.
These texts contained Tucker Carlson’s true feelings. But on-air, he consistently said just the opposite.
On his November 23rd show, Carlson accused “the left” of rigging the election. At the beginning of his show that night, he said, “You’ve heard a lot over the past few days about the security of our electronic voting machines, and this is a real issue no matter who raises it or who tries to dismiss it out of hand as a conspiracy theory. Electronic voting is not as secure as traditional hand counting, period. It will never be as secure.”
Carlson went on to say, “Democrats used the coronavirus to change the system of voting. They vastly increased the number of mail-in ballots because they knew their candidates would benefit from less secure voting, and they were right.”
But of course, those on-air statements made by Tucker Carlson came after he had already privately dismissed the claims about Dominion Voting Machines, saying in a text on November 9th, “The software [expletive] is absurd.”
Carlson wasn’t the only Fox News host who peddled lies about the 2020 Election.
Another former Fox host, Lou Dobbs, consistently invited guests on-air who claimed that Dominion and Smartmatic USA (another election systems company) engaged in fraud during the 2020 election.
These allegations against both voting machine companies led the companies to send legal notices and retraction demand letters to Fox News, which eventually resulted in the defamation lawsuits filed by both companies.
Although Fox has settled with Dominion, the network is still facing a trial with Smartmatic. Smartmatic is seeking $2.7 billion.
After the Dominion settlement, Smartmatic lawyer Erik Connolley said, “Dominion’s litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox’s disinformation campaign. Smartmatic will expose the rest.”
Along with naming the network itself, Smartmatic’s lawsuit also specifically names hosts Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro and former host Lou Dobbs.
In the lawsuit, Smartmatic alleges that Fox and its hosts didn’t just report the statements made by Trump and his allies, but they also “effectively endorsed and participated in the statements with reckless disregard for, or serious thoughts about” whether the claims were true or not.
The lawsuit also states that Fox News and its hosts “purposely avoided publicly available knowledge” that would have disproved that Smartmatic’s software and Dominion’s machines were used in a fraudulent fashion during the 2020 election.
Recently in the case, Smartmatic filed a motion asking the Supreme Court of New York to compel Fox to “reproduce all relevant documents and depositions from the Dominion actions.”
Smartmatic has also said that Fox received an order in September 2022 demanding that they reproduce all relevant documents and depositions from Dominion.
Throughout the lawsuit, Fox News has claimed that it is protected by the First Amendment.
