Fox News faces an investigation into whether it wrongly withheld evidence from Dominion Voting Systems ahead of a defamation trial over 2020 election-conspiracy theories propounded by the network’s hosts and guests.
(Bloomberg) — Fox News faces an investigation into whether it wrongly withheld evidence from Dominion Voting Systems ahead of a defamation trial over 2020 election-conspiracy theories propounded by the network’s hosts and guests.
A Delaware judge said Wednesday he’d appoint a court official to determine whether Fox misled him about Rupert Murdoch’s role at the network and whether documents and recordings were properly turned over to Dominion.
“I’m concerned there may have been misrepresentations” made about Fox’s compliance with court rules governing pre-trial information exchanges, Superior Court Judge Eric Davis said in a pre-trial hearing Wednesday. Fox could face sanctions if it’s found to have withheld or destroyed relevant documents.
The ruling is another blow to Fox’s efforts to defend itself against Dominion’s claims that the network’s bogus assertions that its voting machines were rigged to propel Joe Biden to victory in the 2020 election damaged its reputation to the tune of $1.6 billion. The Denver-based company says it’s still receiving threats from the network’s backers who believe the claims.
Dominion’s lawyers say one issue is Fox’s failure to turn over files showing Murdoch, the founder of Fox Corp., also held the executive chairman title at Fox News. That miscue harmed the voting-machine maker’s efforts to put together its defamation case, its lawyers said.
Murdoch’s network title had been publicly available for years in the company’s US Securities and Exchange Commission filings and Dominion lawyers used those filings in his pre-trial deposition, Fox News lawyers responded. “I don’t think they were prejudiced” by the network’s late handover of the names of all the network’s officers and directors, said Dan Webb, one of Fox’s lawyers.
Dominion also pointed to the tardy handover of secret recordings of Fox commentators, including Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, made by a now-fired producer for Fox host Maria Bartiromo’s show as another example of evidence that was mishandled.
Attorneys for the manufacturer played a snippet of one of the recordings, in which Bartiromo asks Giuliani if it were true that former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had a financial interest in Dominion. That’s one of the false statements at issue in the case, Davis noted during the hearing.
“I read that, but I can’t prove that,” Giuliani responded.
Dominion said statements like Giuliani’s may bolster its case that Fox guests knew such conspiracy theories involving the voting-machine maker was false, but continued to make them on air anyway.
Fox’s lawyers said they didn’t learn about the recordings until recently and moved to quickly turn them over to Dominion. They said Abby Grossberg – the producer who is now suing Fox for intimidation – didn’t indicate she’d made the recordings until recently.
Davis refused Dominion’s request to split the trial into two separate proceedings — against Fox Corp. and Fox News — over the alleged document mishandling. But the judge said he’d consider punishing the network by telling jurors they botched the handover of files once the so-called special master probing the issue issues a report.
The judge is going through a list of pre-trial issues to set the stage for the six-week trial, which is scheduled to start Thursday with jury selection. Opening arguments are scheduled for April 17.
The defamation case is Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network LLC, N21C-03-257 EMD, Delaware Superior Court (Wilmington).
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