Capitol Hill Blue Forums Thread Like Summary - Dominion v Fox News lawsuit

Fox News and its parent company are being sued for defamation over false claims of election fraud following the 2020 election.

In its defense against Dominion, Fox News' legal team argues the network simply relayed stark claims about national elections, either as "questions to a newsmaker on newsworthy subjects" or by "accurately report[ing] on pending allegations." As the sitting U.S. president, Trump was among the most newsworthy people imaginable, Fox attorneys argue.

Dominion has given a snapshot of the ways and whys in which Fox News helped magnify false voter fraud claims, especially (though not exclusively) those of Sidney Powell.

It all takes place against the backdrop of a huge backlash against Fox after it called AZ for Joe Biden. When Fox presented the truth about the election, viewers started fleeing to Newsmax, with Trump’s encouragement. The filing describes the panic that ensued.

Discovery in this lawsuit reveals through texts and emails, Fox's own employees didn't believe what their primetime hosts were saying on the air.

Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch told Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott in a November 16 email:


Fox News isn’t just a rightwing propaganda outlet. It’s the communications arm of the Republican Party, promoting its agenda and providing a safe space for GOP elected officials.

This discovery makes it clear that in a bid to cater to viewers who were fed false claims by Trump, Fox played right along with the false claims that would lead to insurrection. Special prosecutor Jack Smith is already examining multiple parts of this effort. This discovery makes evidence that would otherwise be unavailable accessible to prosecutors.

Fox News refuses to run ad by Move-on.org calling-out Fox's lies to its viewers regarding the November 2020 election.

More and more shocking revelations are coming from Rupert Murchdoch's sworn testimony in the Dominion v Fox News lawsuit. Among them:

• Confessed that he helped Donald Trump cheat during the 2020 election.
• He provided Jared Kushner confidential information about Joe Biden’s ads, the kind of information that Trump had to rely on Russian spies to obtain from Hillary in 2016.

Clearly Fox News and Trump were (still are?) in a symbiotic relationship. Fox gets rich on advertising revenue from their conservative captive audience, while at the same time, using the platform to rile up the captive audience AND to help elect politicians who will tilt the laws in favor of the rich, while riling up captive audience by going on Fox shows with anecdotes that are less than true.

Get richer on more captive and riled up audience from more advertising revenue - it’s all fun and games (worth billions of dollars) until someone loses a country.

They're not. At least the MAGA republicans aren't.

The Maga republicans, although currently a minority, along with FOX is one powerful entity. I have been watching FOX lately just to see for myself what lies they are telling. It is pathetic, I agree! But, I can see how some people can believe what FOX is feeding them. They are spoon fed this misinformation regularly and after a while, they get brainwashed into believing it. People have to get their news from various sources, but when you only watch the liars, they start believing them.

Todays MAGA republicans and FOX will be the ruin of this country. Many people seem to think the threat is over, but I think it's just beginning. I think we may be near the end of the beginning of this assault on democracy, turning it into an autocracy.

Most people think that the MAGA crowd will shrink away to nothing, but I think along with FOX's help with their free speech (lies) assault on our democracy, our democracy is doomed. I know people that vote MAGA akthough it is against their own interests. Unbelievable.

Sorry for the doom and gloom, but that's how I see the future of our country. It will be a miracle if we can hold on to this democracy. I fear that in the next 20 years, the experiment will be over. Failed!

Oh, BTW, I just saw a poll showing that Trump is gaining popularity over DeSantis 58% - 17%.

A lot of people who knew that the election was not stolen, was not infected by massive fraud, continued to repeat the allegations that it was - former president Trump, first among them, and including some of his megaphones on Fox News, irresponsibly pedaled false narratives.

That's outrageous. This reenforces the notion that the attack on the Capitol was motivated by lies to the American people. A lot of people attacking the Capitol on J6 sincerely believed that the election was stolen. That's because many Republicans lied to them. This is one of the central takeaways from the Dominion v Fox lawsuit discovery which is providing further evidence of Republicans lying to the American people about the 2020 election.

If Fox cared about the truth that it now acknowledges as seen by the lawsuit discovery, Fox would have its top personalities reporting that truth to its audience - but they're not doing that.

A significant percentage of Americans who still wrongly believe the 2020 election was stolen - including so many of Fox's own loyal viewers, who heard it over and over again on Fox's airwaves. After all, as Rupert Murdoch himself admitted, Fox is 'uniquely positioned to state the message that the election was not stolen,' and yet Fox continues to fail to do so even today.

They should have had that yanked a long time ago.

That sort of activity is a threat to national security and Fox's continuing conduct is injurious to constitutional things like the Peace and the General Welfare.

A lawsuit filed yesterday by Fox News producer Abby Grossberg has thrown a wrench into its defense against a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems.

The New York Times is reporting Grossberg alleges that she was coached by Fox News attorneys to give misleading testimony under oath in order to shift blame away from the network for airing multiple false claims about Dominion.

Per the Grossman lawsuit:


Grossberg's lawsuit claims Fox News tried to make Grossberg and Maria Bartiromo the scapegoats for the network’s coverage of Dominion Voting Systems. In the weeks after the 2020 presidential election, Fox News hosts and guests - including Bartiromo and Carlson - made dubious or outright false claims that the company had helped rig the contest against then-POTUS Donald Trump.

This lawsuit completely upends Fox News' defense for the upcoming Dominion lawsuit.

Judge sends Dominion lawsuit against Fox News to trial (Politico)

"It is “CRYSTAL clear” that Fox aired false statements about the voting company after the 2020 election, the judge wrote."

"Judge Eric Davis concluded that Dominion Voting Systems, which makes election equipment, had proven that Fox aired a series of false claims about the company, but that depositions, internal emails and text messages had not established whether Fox acted with “actual malice” by carrying statements on its air that it knew were false or likely so.

The evidence is “CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,” Davis wrote. Fox’s false statements included assertions that the company was controlled by Venezuela and implemented a bizarre algorithm to boost Democrats’ vote count under certain conditions, the judge said.

Some uncertainty remained about who at Fox authorized specific broadcasts and what those people knew or believed at the time, Davis continued.

“The Court does not weigh the evidence to determine who may have been responsible for publication and if such people acted with actual malice – these are genuine issues of material fact and therefore must be determined by a jury,” the judge wrote in his81-page ruling ."

"While the Court must view the record in the light most favorable to Fox, the record does not show a genuine issue of material fact as to falsity. Through its extensive proof, Dominion has met its burden of showing there is no genuine issue of material fact as to falsity. Fox therefore had the burden to show an issue of material fact existed in turn. Fox failed to meet its burden. The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that is CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true. Therefore, the Court will grant summary judgment in favor of Dominion on the element of falsity."

By so ruling, the judge essentially eliminated much of Fox's "defense" claiming "ambiguity". That is going to be a very, very high hurdle to surmount at trial. But he didn't stop there. He also found "no issue of material fact" that Fox published the falsities. " FNN is not a passive entity. FNN controls what is broadcast on its various networks. FNN does this through its employees as agents of FNN. Thus, regardless of who within FNN is responsible for publication, FNN did in fact publish the statements to its viewers."

Fox is screwed. Fox should be.

Those emails and text messages seem pretty malicious to me. I think the judge just wants to cover his butt by having a jury say it instead of him.