CNN —
Fox News argued in court Wednesday that its hosts and guests were merely raising questions and “presented a puzzle to unravel” when they repeatedly suggested, falsely, that January 6 rioter Ray Epps was a government agent who orchestrated the attack.
The pushback came in a defamation suit that Epps filed against the right-wing network. He claims Fox figures, including ex-host Tucker Carlson, destroyed his reputation by repeatedly raising the baseless idea that he led a false-flag plot to hurt Donald Trump.
“Tucker Carlson (and/or his guests) described the known (and undisputed) facts” about Epps, Fox said in the filing. “Then they asked questions and speculated about answers.”
The Trump-friendly network further argued: “The format of the segments involved setting out facts and raising queries on those facts, which indicated that issues surrounding (Epps) presented a puzzle to unravel, not a matter on which there were definitive answers.”
These arguments lean into the notion that Fox’s hosts genuinely “asked questions” and “looked for answers” about Epps’ role in the January 6 insurrection. But this ignores the fact that a previous defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems demonstrated that several Fox hosts operated in bad faith, raising claims on-air that they didn’t actually believe.
Fox News is asking a Delaware federal judge to throw out the lawsuit.
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