Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch testified that Fox News’s popular commentators “endorsed” Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 presidential election was rigged, even though Murdoch said he doubted the conspiracy theory right away, reports Bloomberg citing a filing in a defamation lawsuit.
“Some of our commentators were endorsing it,” Murdoch said while being questioned under oath in a $1.6 billion suit by Dominion Voting Systems Inc., which included excerpts of the deposition in a court filing Monday.
“About the endorsement of a stolen election?” a lawyer asked.
“Yes,” Murdoch said. “They endorsed.”
Fox News is accused of helping to promote false claims that the voting-machine maker flipped millions of electronic ballots away from Trump as part of a vast conspiracy involving corrupt Democrats and foreign hackers — a claim still touted by the former president and many of his allies.
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| Rupert Murdoch |
“It is fair to say you seriously doubted any claim of massive election fraud?” Murdoch was asked by a Dominion lawyer.
“Oh, yes,” Murdoch said.
“And you seriously doubted it from the very beginning?” he was asked.
“Yes,” Murdoch replied. “I mean, we thought everything was on the up-and-up. I think that was shown when we announced Arizona.” He was referring to when Fox declared Joe Biden the winner in the state on election night.
Murdoch’s testimony was partially disclosed by Denver-based Dominion in its response to a request by Fox in its favor without holding a trial, which is currently set for April in Delaware state court. Dominion has also asked the judge to rule in its favor without a trial.
The voting-machine company argues the depositions of Murdoch and others support its claim that Fox broadcast the defamatory claims while “knowing or recklessly disregarding the truth.” An earlier filing by Dominion cited text messages and emails to show that a slew of on-air talent and executives knew the theory was bogus.
On Monday, Fox criticized Dominion’s filing as an attempt to “generate headlines” rather than put forth valid legal arguments.
“Their summary judgment motion took an extreme, unsupported view of defamation law that would prevent journalists from basic reporting and their efforts to publicly smear FOX for covering and commenting on allegations by a sitting President of the United States should be recognized for what it is: a blatant violation of the First Amendment,” Fox said.
Fox also argues that the text messages and emails cited in Dominion’s earlier filing fail to support the case because the seemingly damning comments weren’t made by anyone whose statements were allegedly defamatory.
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