Rupert Murdoch Leaked Biden TV Commercials To Jared Kushner

Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch testified he gave Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner a preview in 2020 of a Joe Biden campaign ad, the latest sign of unusually close ties between the network and the former president, reports Bloomberg.

Murdoch, questioned under oath in a voting-machine company’s $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox News and Fox Corp., initially denied providing the ad preview until he was shown an email in which he told Kushner he “will send it,” according to excerpts of his deposition made public Tuesday.

“Do you think it is appropriate for someone in your position to give a heads up to the opposing campaign about what the ad of the opposing campaign will show before it is public?” Justin Nelson, a lawyer for Dominion Voting Systems Inc., said at the deposition.

“I was trying to help Mr. Kushner,” Murdoch said. “He’s a friend of mine.”

The exchange was included by Dominion in hundreds of pages of evidence as the company seeks a court ruling granting it total victory on its defamation claims without a trial. Dominion, which was falsely accused on-air of rigging the election against Trump, argues its reputation was seriously damaged by the conspiracy theory and that Fox knew it was bogus but aired it anyway.

Dominion argues communications between Murdoch and Kushner are part of a mountain of evidence that Fox at the time had a cozy relationship with Trump. The former president’s allies, including Rudy Giuliani, appeared on Fox for weeks to spread the conspiracy theory without presenting any evidence.

Fox disputed that Murdoch gave Kushner nonpublic information.

“Mr. Murdoch forwarded an already-publicly available Biden campaign ad which was available on YouTube and had even run on public airwaves,” Fox said in a statement Tuesday. “Dominion has been caught red handed again using more distortions and misinformation in their PR campaign to smear Fox News and trample on free speech and freedom of the press.”

Dominion said it stands by its filing.

Separately on Tuesday, Fox News filed exhibits that shed more light on its arguments in the case, including the network’s claim that Dominion hasn’t really been hurt financially by Fox’s reports on the conspiracy theory. Fox also made public excerpts of evidence that it says shows Dominion took Murdoch out of context in an earlier court filing by suggesting he’d said words that were actually said by a lawyer.

“We already know they will say and do anything to try to win this case, but to twist and even misattribute quotes to the highest levels of our company is truly beyond the pale,” Fox said in a statement.

Dominion’s suit is scheduled for trial in April, but each side has asked the judge to grant it a final victory without putting the case to a jury, based only on the strength of its evidence.

Fox argues the allegedly defamatory broadcasts are protected by the First Amendment because Dominion can’t prove the reports were broadcast with “actual malice” — with knowledge they were false or with reckless disregard for the truth.