Ariana Baio
Feb 17, 2023
content.jwplatform.com
A lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News claims the network knew it was spreading lies about the 2020 election being fraudulent - and court documents suggest one source claimed to be a time traveler.
Dominion Voting Systems, the company that supplies voting machines and electronic voting software in the US, is suing Fox News for defamation regarding accusations they made about the 2020 election.
Dominion is alleging Fox News knowingly spread misinformation about the integrity of the election. Fox News denies this.
And a recent filing provides messages between Fox News hosts and executives showing their alleged uneasiness about sharing election doubts.
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Notably, the filing claims that Sidney Powell, a former Donald Trump legal team member who appeared on Fox News as a guest, was using “clearly dubious sources that made her unreliable.”
According to the filing, before Powell made an appearance on Fox News host Maria Bartiromo’s show, she allegedly got her “evidence” about the election from a woman who claimed she was “‘internally decapitated’ capable of ‘time-travel in a semi-conscious state’ and who speaks to ‘the Wind’ as ‘a ghost.’”
\u201cAccording to the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News, one of the sources for the network's "election fraud" information said she got her information from "experiencing something like time-travel in a semi-conscious state" that allows her to "see what others don't see."\u201d— Ben Collins (@Ben Collins) 1676596299
Messages between some Fox News hosts like Tucker Carlson and Laura Inghram allege the hosts knew Powell was not being honest.
Carlson allegedly called Powell a “lunatic,” “crazy person,” “nutcase,” and “dangerous as hell” among other things.
Ingraham allegedly claimed Powell was a “complete nut.”
Raj Shah, senior vice president of Fox Corporations allegedly told Fox Corporation founder Rupert Murdoch her claims were “outlandish.”
Fox claims the quotes Dominion "mischaracterized the record" claiming Doninon "cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law."
The filing also includes Fox hosts and executives sharing messages of concern about other notable election fraud purports like Rudy Guiliani and Mike Lindell.
Dominion is seeking $1.6 billion from Fox News, which if won could cause great financial and reputational harm to the network. However, for that outcome, Dominion would have to prove Fox News acted with actual malice - known to be a difficult standard to meet in defamation cases.
In a statement, Fox said, “There will be a lot of noise and confusion generated by Dominion and their opportunistic private equity owners, but the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan.”
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