Rupert Murdoch Admits Fox News Anchors Confirmed False Stolen Election Claims

Oliver Darcy and John Passantino, CNN

Rupert Murdoch, chairman of Fox Corporation, admitted in testimony to Dominion Voting Systems that some Fox News anchors confirmed false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Murdoch’s remarks were made public as part of Dominion’s $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox News.

In his testimony, Murdoch denied that the right-wing talk network, as an organization, supported former President Donald Trump’s campaign lies. But Murdoch admitted that Sean Hannity, Janine Pirro, Maria Bartiromo and former host Lou Dobbs were spreading the lie that the presidential election was stolen.

“Some of our commentators were supportive of that,” Murdoch said, according to the statement, when asked about the broadcasters’ stance on the election. “I wish we were stronger in condemning this in hindsight,” he added.

The documentation also revealed that Murdoch called some of Trump’s lies in the 2020 election “bullish and destructive.”

Fox called Dominion’s lawsuit “doubtful”

In a statement Monday, Fox News criticized Dominion.

“The Dominion lawsuit has always been more about what will make headlines than what can withstand legal and factual scrutiny,” the network says, “as evidenced by the fact that they are now forced to cut their bizarre damage claims by more than half a billion dollars after their own expert refuted her implausible claims.”

“Their petition for summary judgment contained an extreme, unsubstantiated view of defamation law that would prevent journalists from doing basic reporting, and their attempts to publicly vilify Fox for covering and commenting on the allegations of the current President of the United States must be recognized as such, what they are: a gross violation of the First Amendment, ”added the network.

Fox on Monday defended the actions of executives and presenters during the 2020 election in its own legal documents countering the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit. Fox claimed that its hosts’ allegations of on-air election fraud were taken out of context.

Fox says it should not be held responsible for host claims.

“Dominion’s motion for summary judgment is flawed from top to bottom and must be denied in its entirety,” Fox News lawyers wrote in a statement Monday.

Fox Corporation said in a statement that Dominion “has provided no evidence to support its dubious theory that senior Fox Corporation executives “decided to publish and broadcast” or played a “direct role in creating and publishing” the false campaign lies. ”

Fox pokes fun at allegations of electoral fraud

In another document released earlier this month, a slew of messages and emails from Fox News’ most famous stars and senior executives revealed that they were privately mocking claims of rigged 2020 elections despite the right-wing channel spreading lies. on the presidential election on its air.

Reports showed that Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram viciously ridiculed the lies spread by former President Donald Trump’s camp, claiming the election was rigged.

The court documents provided the clearest picture to date of the chaos that took place behind the scenes on Fox News after Trump lost the election and viewers rebelled against the right-wing channel for accurately naming the contest in favor of Biden.

Leading legal experts told CNN after filing last week that Dominion’s legal position appears strong.

“This is a major blow,” noted First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams said of the Dominion’s motion for summary judgment, adding that “recent revelations have certainly put Fox in a more precarious position” in defending a First Amendment lawsuit. .

Rebecca Tushnet, Frank Stanton First Amendment Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, described Dominion’s evidence as “very compelling” documents that “clearly show the difference between what Fox said in public and what Fox dignitaries acknowledged in private.”

Tushnet said that in her years of practicing and teaching law, she had never seen such compelling evidence collected in the pre-trial stage of a defamation suit.

“I don’t remember anything like that,” Tushnet said. “Donald Trump seems to be very good at creating unprecedented situations.”

Murdoch said it was “wrong” for Tucker Carlson to host campaign conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell.

In his testimony, Murdoch also said that it was “wrong” for Fox’s Tucker Carlson to include conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell on his post-election program.

Murdoch stated that “it was wrong for Tucker to host Mike Lindell to repeat these allegations against the Dominion on January 26, 2021,” the documents say.

When asked why he keeps allowing Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, to make claims about election fraud on Fox News, Murdoch said it was a business decision.

“It’s not red or blue, it’s green,” Murdoch replied, according to court documents.

“The man works every night. Pays us a lot of money…” Murdoch said. “At first you think it’s funny, and then you get bored and annoyed.”

Murdoch also said he could have prevented Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, former attorneys for President Trump and his campaign who have alleged election fraud, from appearing on the network’s programming, the statement said.

“I could have. But I didn’t,” Murdoch said.

Paul Ryan warned Murdox and Fox to stop spreading false campaign narratives

Court documents on Monday revealed that Paul Ryan repeatedly warned Murdoch and Fox News about the dangerous consequences of discussing false election fraud stories live with viewers.

Ryan, a former speaker of the House of Representatives and board member of Fox Corporation, repeatedly told Rupert and Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch that the company “should not spread conspiracy theories.”

On at least one occasion, Ryan advised the Murdochs that the company should “get away from Donald Trump and stop spreading campaign lies.”

During this time, Ryan told the Murdochs that many of those who thought the election had been stolen did so “because they received information that the election was stolen from sources they thought were credible.”

“The sooner we can suppress the echoes of lies on our part, the sooner we can find principled loyal opposition,” Ryan wrote to Rupert. “I sincerely hope that our members, as well as Tucker, Laura and Sean, get this and do it.”

Rupert responded to Ryan, noting that “everything has changed” since the events of January 6, 2021, and asked the former speaker-turned-COO of Fox to provide suggestions for attendees.

Murdoch gave Kushner ‘confidential information’ about Biden ad

The Dominion documents also state that Rupert Murdoch gave Jared Kushner, son-in-law of former President Donald Trump, “confidential information about [President Joe] The Biden ad, along with the debate strategy” in 2020, “provided Kushner with a preview of the Biden ad before it went public,” the lawsuit says.

Murdoch also said under oath that on election night, Kushner called him upset by the media coverage of the election that was ultimately called for Biden. Murdoch testified that Kushner said, “It’s terrible” and Murdoch could “hear Trump’s voice in the background.” Murdoch said he replied, “Well, numbers are numbers.”

According to the documents, Murdoch said he believed there was no fraud in the election.

“Yeah. I mean, we thought things were on the up. I think that was shown when we announced Arizona,” Murdoch said, referring to Fox News’ prediction on Election Night that Joe Biden would win in critical state on the battlefield.

A rep for Kushner did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

— Liam Reilly of CNN and Nicky Brown contributed to this report.

The-CNN-Wire
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