More damning behind-the-scenes documents from Fox News came out Tuesday evening as part of the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against the network, and yes, it is fun to see Tucker Carlson texting “I hate him passionately” about none other than Donald Trump. A Fox News spokeswoman accused Dominion of including “distortions and misinformation” in its legal filings, but so far Fox hasn’t proven any such thing while Dominion keeps rolling out new information.
“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,” the spokeswoman said, which makes you wonder what specifically Fox is going to claim is twisted or misattributed.
Is it when Rupert Murdoch emailed Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott in January 2021, saying, “Maybe Sean [Hannity] and Laura [Ingraham] went too far”? Is Fox claiming that Murdoch didn’t concede that?
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Is it when Murdoch said, in his deposition in the case, that he shared confidential Biden campaign ad information with Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner because “I was trying to help Mr. Kushner” who is “a friend of mine”? Is Fox saying that part was fake?
Or maybe the Fox News PR department is getting ready to claim that Maria Bartiromo did not text Steve Bannon, “I want to see massive fraud exposed … I told my team we are not allowed to say pres elect at [all]. Not in scripts or in banners on air. Until this moves through the courts.”
Then there was the time Sean Hannity texted Steve Doocy, saying, ”You don’t piss off the base,” and Doocy replied, referring to what passes for a news division at Fox, “They don’t care. They are JOURNALISTS.” That wasn’t the only time the prominent nighttime personalities complained about the news division. Carlson and Ingraham exchanged texts complaining about a Fox News anchor daring to debunk Trump lawyer Sidney Powell’s election fraud claims, and Ingraham at one point blamed the news division for ratings struggles, texting, “My anger at the news channel is pronounced.”
So what do the lawyers defending Fox News in this matter have to say? Because these are all things Dominion’s filings have documented, and if Fox wants to claim that Dominion is doing things “truly beyond the pale,” it stands to reason that the network’s lawyers must be on the brink of discrediting all this … somehow, right? It would be a pretty big deal, legally speaking, if Dominion was just making this stuff up, and you would think Fox’s lawyers would already be on the case. Last month’s Fox News filings asking for summary judgment didn't make the case, and neither do the vague allegations from the spokeswoman.
Dominion is showing its evidence, and the evidence is strong. Fox News is not yet showing us anything. It’s just blustering, with an intended audience of its regular audience. Dominion is lying, not us, say the spokespeople. Everyone lies anyway, say the guests and hosts. It’s time for them to actually show some evidence. We’ll be waiting.
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Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also recap the first round of voting in the race for Chicago mayor, which saw a progressive apocalypse averted; the resolution to the long-running uncertainty over the speakership in the Pennsylvania state House that saw Joanna McClinton make history; Rep. Elissa Slotkin's entry into Michigan's open Senate race, which makes her the first prominent candidate to run; and the inexplicable decision by conservatives to go dark on the airwaves for a full week following last week's primary in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.