Lawyers for Fox News and voting equipment company Dominion will face off in a Delaware courtroom on Tuesday in the latest phase of Dominion’s closely watched $1.6bn defamation suit against the media company for spreading election lies.
The case has attracted much attention because it represents one of the most aggressive efforts to hold any party accountable for spreading election misinformation in the United States.
Court filings leading up to the hearing have produced stunning internal messages showing that prominent Fox hosts, including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, privately doubted the far-fetched allegations about Dominion even as the network continued to air them.
Rupert Murdoch, the chief executive of Fox Corporation, said in his deposition that Fox News hosts “endorsed” the lie of a stolen election. Murdoch also acknowledged he personally could have done more to stop the airing of false claims, but did not.
Both sides will be making their case to Eric Davis, a Delaware superior court judge overseeing the case, to rule in their favor ahead of a trial. The case is widely expected to proceed to a trial scheduled in mid-April, though the parties could reach a settlement before then.
At the center of the case is Fox’s decision to air a number of false claims about Dominion after the 2020 election as Donald Trump and his allies tried to overturn the result.
Those claims included allegations that Dominion rigged the 2020 election by manipulated vote...
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