Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch is set to be questioned under oath on Tuesday in a defamation lawsuit regarding his network’s coverage of unsubstantiated voter fraud allegations in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Election tech firm Dominion Voting Systems is seeking US$1.6 billion in damages from Fox News Network, which it says spread false allegations that its machines were used to rig the 2020 election against the Republican Donald Trump and in favor of his Democratic rival Joe Biden.
Fox argued that he had a right to report on Trump’s vote manipulation allegations and that the Dominion lawsuit would stifle press freedom. A judge rejected the network’s bid to throw the case out in December 2021. A Fox spokesperson declined to comment.
“From the highest level down, Fox knowingly spread lies,” Dominion said in a statement.
Murdoch, 91, is the most high-profile person to be questioned in the case, which is part of a multi-pronged legal campaign by Dominion against Fox and other conservative media outlets and commentators who have accused the company of conspiring to oust Trump.
A five-week trial in the Fox case is due to begin on April 17.
“Actual malice” must be proven
Murdoch will be questioned by videoconference Tuesday and Wednesday by Dominion attorneys, according to a filing in Delaware Superior Court. The meeting will not be open to the public.
Domination was founded by Canadian John Poulos in Torontoits touchscreen technology originally developed to help visually impaired and physical people vote.
Poulos recently said 60 minutes that the allegations subjected company employees to threats and harassment following the 2020 election demands.
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Against the backdrop of the January 6 Committee hearings, a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News is shaping up to be a very big deal. Dominion Voting Systems accuses Fox of pushing false claims of voter fraud that cast Dominion as the bad guy. This week, former attorney general William Barr was subpoenaed by the court – a sign that things are moving in “a very serious direction”, according to Erik Wemple, columnist and media critic for The Washington Post.
Dominion has also sought communications from Murdoch, his son Lachlan Murdoch and other Fox News staffers, as it appears to prove the network either knew the statements it was airing were untrue or recklessly disregarded their accuracy. It is the “actual malice” standard that public figures must prove in order to prevail in defamation cases.
Doug Mirell, a defamation attorney who has followed the litigation, said he believes Dominion has a “watertight” case for actual malice because the Fox hosts moved forward with voter fraud allegations “long after he was clear that these allegations were patently false”.
Dominion, whose U.S. headquarters is in Denver, alleged in its March 2021 lawsuit that Fox amplified false theories to boost its ratings and keep abreast of far-right competitors, including One America News Network, that the company is also suing.
The complaint cited instances where, in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, Trump allies like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell appeared on Fox News and falsely claimed Dominion software may have manipulated the vote count. in favor of Biden.
On Nov. 30, 2020, for example, Powell appeared on Sean Hannity’s show, where she falsely claimed that the Dominion machines “ran an algorithm that whittled down Trump’s votes and attributed them to Biden. And they used the machines to throw away big batches of votes that should have gone to President Trump.”
Multiple Grilled Fox Hosts
Murdoch’s high-stakes deposition on Tuesday comes as Dominion has spent the past few months interviewing a parade of Fox News hosts, executives and producers.
On Dec. 5, Murdoch’s eldest son and Fox Corp. executive chairman and CEO, Lachlan, sat down for a deposition in Los Angeles. Murdoch’s other son, James Murdoch, was questioned in October.
Fox hosts and co-hosts Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Jeanine Pirro and Bret Baier have also been questioned in recent months, according to court records, along with former host Lou Dobbs. Fox News Chief Executive Suzanne Scott and Chairman Jay Wallace also sat for depositions.
Hannity and Dobbs have previously faced depositions in a lawsuit brought by the parents of Seth Rich, the Democratic National Committee staffer whose 2016 killing on a street in Washington, DC, spurred coverage conspirator on the network. Fox settled this lawsuit for an undisclosed amount before being tried.
Tuesday’s deposition comes as special committees of the boards of News Corp and Fox Corp. controlled by Murdoch are considering a proposal by Murdoch to recombine, nearly a decade after the companies split.
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