Dominion Voting Systems filed a motion for summary judgment Thursday in its $1.6-billion defamation case against Fox News, claiming Rupert Murdoch's network knowingly pushed a false narrative based on former President Trump's bogus claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
“From the top down, Fox knew ‘the Dominion stuff’ was ‘total bs,’" the brief stated. “Yet despite knowing the truth — or at minimum, recklessly disregarding that truth — Fox spread and endorsed these ‘outlandish voter fraud claims’ about Dominion even as it internally recognized the lies as ‘crazy,’ ‘absurd,’ and ‘shockingly reckless.’"
The motion based on depositions and evidence uncovered in discovery — and the response filed by Fox News — lays out the legal showdown, which could be a devastating blow to Murdoch's empire. The document goes into granular detail to claim the network panicked over viewer reaction to Trump's loss, with the truth at times taking a back seat to concern over declining ratings. It's likely to have a lasting negative impact on the network's reputation even if the case does not go to trial as scheduled in mid-April.
Fox maintains the company's stance that its reporting on Trump's claims — albeit false — were still newsworthy and protected under the 1st Amendment. In a response also filed Thursday, Fox News deals at length with Dominion's value as a company and asserts its request for $1.6 billion in damages far exceeds the company's value and is an overreach.
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