Unsealed Dominion Brief Reveals Everyone At Fox Knew, Before Biden Was Declared Winner, That Every Stolen Election Claim Was A Complete Lie ... Yet They Promoted Trump's Bullshit On Air For Months
Fox EVP of Primetime Programming admits that by November 6, 2020, "going on television to say that the election is being stolen would not be based in fact".
An unsealed brief in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation suit reveals that every Fox executive and TV host knew there was absolutely no evidence for any of Donald Trump’s lunatic claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, but they lied non-stop on the air for months, boosting the lies of people they admitted off-camera were “so full of shit”, “dangerously insane”, “off the rails”, and “poison”.
The brief contains copious evidence that Fox kept lying — even after Dominion warned Fox of a defamation lawsuit — because Fox received numerous viewer complaints whenever the network tried dialing back the lies. Also, Fox was terrified of losing viewers to Newsmax and OAN (who are also being sued by Dominion). Fox should be far more terrified of having to pay Dominion over three billion dollars.
Dominion has brought eight defamation lawsuits (for almost $12 billion ($11,916,910,000)) concerning the 2020 election. Courts documents can be found here:
January 25, 2021 — Defamation Suit against Rudolph W. Giuliani ($1,303,470,000)
January 25, 2021 — Defamation Suit against Sidney Powell, Sidney Powell, P.C., and Defending the Republic, Inc. ($1,303,470,000)
February 22, 2021 — Defamation Suit against MyPillow Inc. and Michael J. Lindell ($1,303,470,000)
March 26, 2021 — Defamation Suit against Fox News Network, LLC ($1,601,300,000)
August 10, 2021 — Defamation Suit against Newsmax Media Inc. ($1,601,300,000)
August 10, 2021 — Defamation Suit against Herring Networks, Inc. d/b/a One America News Network, Charles Herring, Robert Herring Sr., Chanel Rion, and Christina Bobb ($1,601,300,000)
August 10, 2021 — Defamation Suit against Patrick Byrne ($1,601,300,000)
November 8, 2021 — Defamation Suit against Fox Corporation and Fox Broadcasting Company, LLC ($1,601,300,000)
Other coverage:
Media Matters: They Knew It Was A Lie: The Behind-The-Scenes Happenings At Fox While The Network Pushed False Claims About Dominion
Washington Post: Fox News Hosts, Execs Privately Doubted 2020 Conspiracy Claims Shared On Air
New York Times: Fox Stars Privately Expressed Disbelief About Election Fraud Claims. 'Crazy Stuff.'
New York Times: What Fox News Says When You're Not Listening
Rolling Stone: Tucker Carlson Pushes Election Fraud B.S. Same Night Filing Reveals He Knows It's B.S.
Rolling Stone: Tucker Carlson Calls Trump 'Demonic Force' In New Legal Filing
MSNBC Mehdi Hasan: Bombshell Text Evidence Confirms Fox 'Is Not A News Channel'
MSNBC: ‘BS,’ ‘Insane,’ ‘Crazy,’ ‘Nuts,’ ‘Reckless,’: Fox News Legal Bomb Goes Off
Slate: Tucker Carlson’s Dominion Text Messages Are a Thing of Beauty
Salon: Texts: Murdoch And Fox Hosts Knew Election Claims Were “Crazy” But Worried Facts Hurt “Stock Price”
Salon: Trumpworld Election Conspiracy Theory Stemmed From Email By “Internally Decapitated Ghost”: Filing
(Yes, you read that right. An “internally decapitated ghost” sent the Dr. Pepper-guzzling Kraken lady an email.)
NOTE: Tucker might not mention Dominion, but he’s still spreading lies (and deceiving his audience because he knows it’s bullshit) about the 2020 election. This is from tonight!
Read the entire 192-page brief here. It contains the text of dozens of emails and statements from under-oath depositions. This is a sampling:
“There is NO evidence of fraud. None.”
Bret Baier, Fox Chief Political Correspondent, November 5, 2020
“very hard to credibly claim foul everywhere. if Trump becomes a sore loser we should watch Sean especially and others don’t sound the same”
Rupert Murdoch, email to Suzanne Scott, Fox News CEO, November 6, 2020. Scott forwarded the email to Meade Cooper, Executive VP of Primetime Programming. Cooper later testified that as of November 6, “going on television to say that the election is being stolen would not be based in fact at that point”. Cooper wondered if the top-rated hosts would keep broadcasting lies and told Fox Executive Ron Mitchell: “I feel really good about Tucker and Laura. I think Sean will see the wisdom of this track eventually, but even this morning he was still looking for examples of fraud.” That same night, Sidney Powell was on Lou Dobbs’s show, promoting a batshit theory about a secret CIA program called “Hammer and Scorecard”, which “explains a lot of what we’re seeing” with vote totals.
“They took her off cuz she was being crazy. Optics are bad. But she is crazy.”
Fox producer Justin Wells, November 7, 2020. Jeanine Pirro’s show was cancelled because, according to executive David Clark, “Her guests are all going to say the election is being stolen and if she pushes back at all it will just be token.”
“the software shit is absurd”
Carlson email, November 7, 2020
“This dominion shit is going to give me a fucking aneurysm—as many times as I’ve told Laura it’s bs, she sees shit posters and trump tweeting about it—”
Tommy Firth (Laura Ingraham’s producer) text to Ron Mitchell (Fox executive overseeing Ingraham’s show), November 8, 2020. Later in the day, Mitchell texts: “How’s it going [with] the kooks?”
“Please get her fired. Seriously....What the fuck? I’m actually shocked...It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.”
Carlson to Hannity, November 12, 2020. They attempted to get Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich fired for fact-checking a Trump tweet concerning Dominion. Suzanne Scott told Irena Briganti, Fox’s Senior VP for Corporate Communications (and others): “Sean texted me—he’s standing down on responding but not happy about this and doesn’t understand how this is allowed to happen from anyone in news [Reminder: Heinrich correctly fact-checked something.] She [Heinrich] has serious nerve doing this and if this gets picked up, viewers are going to be further disgusted.” The next day, Heinrich’s fact-checking tweet had been deleted.
“Sidney Powell is lying. Fucking bitch.”
Carlson to Alex Pfeiffer (his producer), November 16, 2020
“We don’t want to antagonize Trump further, but Giuliani taken with a large grain of salt. Everything at stake here.”
Rupert Murdoch, email to Suzanne Scott regarding a Wall Street Journal article about Newsmax, November 16, 2020
Carlson: “Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane.”
Ingraham: “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.”
Carlson: “It’s unbelievably offensive to me. Our viewers are good people and they believe it.”
Text exchange, November 18, 2020
“Watching Giuliani! . . . Really crazy stuff. And damaging.”
Rupert Murdoch, watching Rudy Giuliani press conference, November 19, 2020
White House correspondent Kristen Fisher fact-checked the claims made by Giuliani and Powell. Fox’s executives were not pleased. Fisher received a call from her boss, telling her “higher-ups at Fox News” were “unhappy” with her fact-checking and she needed to “do a better job of respecting our audience”. [More anger at truthful reporting]
“[Y]ou can’t give the crazies an inch right now...they are looking for and blowing up all appearances of disrespect to the audience. . . . The audience feels like we crapped on [them] and we have damaged their trust and belief in us....We can fix this but we cannot smirk at our viewers any longer.”
Suzanne Scott email, about Perino and Fisher’s coverage, November 19 or 20, 2020. Ron Mitchell replied: “I’m not mad at either of them. I’m mad at those clowns at the conference who put us in a terrible place.” Mitchell asked Firth: “Will you be mentioning the international crime conspiracy to steal the election featuring Soros, Maduro, Chavez, Antifa, Cuba, and China?” Firth: “Haha nope—basically want to wrangle the argument away from the crazy that was today—it’s easy to dismiss legitimate complaints when you can lump them in with the circus.” Mitchell: “Yes. But those clowns put us [in] an awkward place where we’re going to need to thread the needle.”
“ludicrous”
Carlson, November 20, 2020
Powell is an “unguided missle” and “dangerous as hell”
Carlson, November 21, 2020
“shockingly reckless”
Carlson, November 21, 2020
“MIND BLOWINGLY NUTS”
Raj Shah, Fox Corporation Senior VP, November 21, 2020
“shit is so crazy right now. so many people openly denying the obvious that Powell is clearly full of it.”
Raj Shah, text to Pfeiffer, November 22, 2020. Pfeiffer replied: “She is a fucking nutcase.”
Carlson: “[Powell is] a nut, as you said at the outset. It totally wrecked my weekend. Wow... I had to try to make the WH disavow her, which they obviously should have done long before.”
Ingraham: “No serious lawyer could believe what they were saying.”
Text exchange, November 22, 2020
“You guys know this is all bullshit. Everyone knows it. I honestly thought, whatever...at least Powell won’t be on credible TV anymore. This is reckless.”
Tony Fratto, email to Jay Wallace after another Lou Dobbs lie-filled show, November 24, 2020. Powell was actually a guest later that day on both Dobbs and Hannity.
“complete bs”
John Fawcett, Fox producer, to Lou Dobbs, November 27, 2020
“It’s dangerously insane these conspiracy theories.”
Fox reporter Lucas Tomlinson to Baier, December 1, 2020
“F’ing lunatics”
Hannity, December 22, 2020
“totally off the rails”
Carlson, December 24, 2020
Fox’s Political Editor Chris Stirewalt acknowledged that “no reasonable person would have thought” the allegations against Dominion were true.
Throughout November and December 2020
“It’s been suggested our prime time three should independently or together say something like ‘the election is over and Joe Biden won’ [such a statement] would go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election stolen.”
Rupert Murdoch, email to Suzanne Scott, January 5, 2021. Scott forwarded the email to Cooper: “I told Rupert that privately they are all there—we need to be careful about using the shows and pissing off the viewers but they know how to navigate.”
“What [Trump]’s good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”
Carlson
“[Trump is] a demonic force, a destroyer. But he’s not going to destroy us.”
Carlson, text to Pfeiffer, January 6, 2021.
On the day of the seditious insurrection, which Tucker has repeatedly — for more than two years — told his viewers that the attack was no big deal, Tucker described Trump as a DEMONIC FORCE.
On Sidney Powell
Tucker Carlson: An “unguided missile”. “dangerous as hell”. “lying”. “Crazy person”. “lunatic”. “Poison”. “Nutcase”. “I’ve got a high tolerance for crazy [but Powell is] too much”. “I caught her [lying]. It’s insane.” “I hope she’s punished.” That all came in a one-week period (November 16-23, 2020)!
Laura Ingraham: “Sidney Powell is a bit nuts. Sorry but she is.” “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.”
On Rudy Giuliani
Rupert Murdoch: “Watching Giuliani! . . . Really crazy stuff. And damaging.” “Giuliani taken with a large grain of salt.” “Fact that Rudy advising [Trump] really bad!”
David Clark: “Crazy town – glad JJP [Judge Jeanine Pirro] didn’t have her [Sidney Powell] or Rudy.”
Gary Schreier: “She [Jenna Ellis] sounds downright sane next to Rudy.”
Laura Ingraham: “Rudy such an idiot.”
Sean Hannity: “Rudy is acting like an insane person.” “F’ing lunatics.”
John Fawcett (Lou Dobbs producer): “Giuliani is so full of shit.”
Anne McCarton (Lou Dobbs producer): “keeping in mind his insanity lately...”
On Mike Lindell
Gary Schreier: “He’s on the crazy train with no brakes.”
Tiffany Fazio: “And Lindell is nuts!”
Alex Pfeiffer: “mike lindell is crazy and about to get sued by dominion.”
Jeff Collins (Fox News Media Ad Sales Eexecutive VP): According to Lindell’s own “family,” he was “going off the reservation.”
On Maria Bartiromo
Fox executive Gary Schreier: “The problem is she has gop conspiracy theorists in her ear and they use her for their message sometimes.”
On Lou Dobbs
Fox President Jay Wallace: “the North Koreans do a more nuanced show” than Lou Dobbs.
Wallace, when Bret Baier suggested Fox buy Parler: “we can barely contain Dobbs—imagine all the crazy we’d be responsible for.”
Fox executive Porter Berry: “he’s not crazy like Dobbs.”
Fox producer Jeff Field: Dobbs “turned a blind eye” because he was “so committed” to Trump; the fact that he “was ultra MAGA [] would be guiding editorial.”
Carlson: “Lou was reckless.”
On Jeanine Pirro
Jerry Andrews: “Jeanine is just as nuts.”
Justin Wells (executive producer for Carlson): “[S]he is crazy.”
On Tucker Carlson
Brian Farley: “crazy Tucker and crazier Hannity.”
On Sean Hannity
Raj Shah: “Hannity is a little out there.”
DEPOSITIONS
“Privately, I had a number of conversations with Sean where he wanted the President to accept the results”.
Scott deposition. She noted Hannity had been privately acknowledging Biden legitimately won the election “for some time”.
“Q: Do you believe as of November 6 that going on television to say that the election is being stolen would be a conspiracy theory?
A: I agree that that would not be based in fact at that point.”
Meade Cooper, Fox News Executive Vice President for Primetime Programming.
“Q: [Y]ou believe, since at least the time that Fox News called the election on November 7th, that Joe Biden was legitimately elected the President of the United States, correct?....
A: Yes, I believe that.”
Suzanne Scott, Fox News CEO.
“[T]hat whole narrative that Sidney was pushing. I did not believe it for one second.” Sean Hannity.
“[N]o reasonable person would have thought that.”
Fox Politics Editor Chris Stirewalt, on whether the allegation that Dominion rigged the election was true.
“[T]he whole theory is absolutely ludicrous to anyone who bothers researching elections for more than five minutes or speaking with any elections professional.” Stephen Richer, Republican, County Recorder in Maricopa County, Arizona.
Dominion’s opening explains how unusual this case is (I have removed cites to exhibits and other cases; bold and italics in original):
Fox knew. From the top down, Fox knew “the dominion stuff” was “total bs.” Ex.162. 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 colorful choices of words used by so many Fox employees all try to capture the same basic truth about these inherently improbable allegations: These claims were false, and obviously so.
A mountain of direct evidence demonstrates actual malice without resort to motive or other circumstantial factors. But why did Fox peddle this false narrative to its viewers? Fox’s correct call of Arizona for Joe Biden triggered a backlash among its audience and the “network [was] being rejected.” Rival networks such as Newsmax took advantage of the opening by promoting “an alternative universe” of election fraud. So Fox went on “war footing,” caring more about protecting its own falling viewership than about the truth. In the words of Fox News’ SVP and Managing Editor of the Washington, D.C. Bureau Bill Sammon, “It’s remarkable how weak ratings make[] good journalists do bad things.” The consequences to Dominion—and to democracy—did not matter.
This case differs from nearly any defamation case before it. Normally plaintiffs prove defendants’ actual malice—whether they knew it was false or “in fact entertained serious doubts as to the truth of the statement”—“by inference, as it would be rare for a defendant to admit such doubts.” Here, however, overwhelming direct evidence establishes Fox’s knowledge of falsity, not just “doubts.”
Normally defamation cases involve a single defamatory statement. Here, Fox defamed Dominion not once. Not twice. Not three times. But continually. Over a months-long timeframe. And while defamation cases often involve matters of public concern, the false statements here—in the words of Fox host Tucker Carlson— “would amount to the single greatest crime in American history. Millions of votes stolen in a day. Democracy destroyed. The end of our centuries’ old system of self-government.”
Normally defamation cases involve the state of mind of one person, or sometimes a handful, as the law only requires that one person with editorial responsibility have the requisite actual malice. Here, however, literally dozens of people with editorial responsibility—from the top of the organization to the producers of specific shows to the hosts themselves—acted with actual malice.
Normally multiple public sources, credible third parties, and governmental agencies at all levels do not debunk the lies in real time. Here, however, they all did so—and Fox knew about them.
Normally the plaintiff does not inform the defendant about the falsity of the allegations during the course of the defamation itself. Here, however, Dominion repeatedly told Fox and urged it to stop publishing these “debunked” and “completely false” claims. Fox admits Sidney Powell and her team never provided Fox with any evidence. Dominion, by contrast, made over 3,600 separate communications to Fox with at least a dozen separate and widely-circulated fact check emails—each pointing to verifiable third-party information debunking the claims. Fox’s research department itself—along with multiple Fox employees—debunked these claims in real time. No credible evidence ever existed for these “absurd” allegations against Dominion. Fox witness after Fox witness has admitted as much, consistent with every single reputable third party and stacks of public record documents.
Normally a defendant does not continue to broadcast lies even after the plaintiff sends verifiable information demonstrating their falsity. Here, however, Fox continued to broadcast these debunked claims even after Dominion sent notification after notification to Fox. Indeed, nineteen of the twenty accused statements occurred after Dominion alerted Fox that these wild allegations were lies and pointed Fox to the correct information.
And normally plaintiffs in defamation cases do not move for summary judgment of liability, let alone file a 40,000-word opening brief. Here, however, Dominion details some of the extensive record evidence demonstrating Fox’s liability on every point—covering this months-long period involving four categories of lies in twenty accused statements across six different shows with the active involvement of numerous Fox Executives.
Dominion understands and embraces the heavy burden of plaintiffs moving for summary judgment on liability in defamation cases. Here, however, the facts demonstrate why no reasonable juror could find in Fox’s favor on each element of Dominion’s defamation claim.
Fox is fucked. Utterly fucked.