Fox News is facing an impending reckoning of its right-wing media outlet in Delaware Superior Court as its parent company, Fox Corporation, seeks to negotiate a last-minute settlement with Dominion Voting Systems. The election technology company filed a massive $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the network earlier this year after hosts Jeanine Pirro, Maria Bartiromo, and Lou Dobbs recycled false claims by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell about ties to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, and flipped votes from former President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Fox has sought to dismiss claims of defamation, insisting that the network was only reporting on newsworthy claims made by the President at the time. However, court documents revealed embarrassing texts, emails, and deposition excerpts from producers, hosts, and executives that would make a jury’s decision against Fox likely, according to experts.
Several case twisting events have happened ahead of the trial, such as former producer Abby Grossberg filing two separate lawsuits against Fox News. One of the lawsuits alleged that the network’s lawyers coached her giving answers to Dominion’s lawsuit, and described Fox producers as “activists, not journalists.” Judge Eric M. Davis, who is presiding over the lawsuit, also admonished Fox’s lawyers for appearing to withhold a recording of Giuliani appearing to talk to Bartiromo without offering proof his claims were true. Fox has responded saying they’ve complied with the discovery obligations and that the lawsuits are without merit.
For Fox, the biggest risk of the trial is potentially an even larger lawsuit from rival election technology Smartmatic. The lawsuit against Giuliani and Fox is currently making its way through New York state court and requesting $2.7 billion in damages. Smartmatic also has lawsuits pending with several conspiracy theorists, such as Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, who has been pushing election falsehoods on numerous talk shows.
Dominion is a private election technology and software company based in Denver, Colorado. The company provides a range of voting systems, election services, and related technology for the public and private sectors in the United States and Canada. Innovations such as the Dominion balloting system and ballot scanning software serve clients nationwide, and Dominion’s security system protects ballots and protect personal voter data.
Rudy Giuliani is an American lawyer who served as the Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. Giuliani became well known internationally for his role in managing federal, state, and city responses to the September 11 attacks in 2001. In the 2020 election, Giuliani served as one of then-president Donald Trump’s personal lawyers, bringing forth lawsuits against several states concerning voter fraud and other election issues. Despite Giuliani’s efforts as Trump’s lawyer, the former president lost to Joe Biden.
