Dominion Voting Systems Files New Defamation Suit Against Fox News
GEORGETOWN, Del. — Dominion Voting Systems filed a new defamation lawsuit against Fox News Thursday, this one focusing on the alleged roles of Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch and his son, Fox CEO and Executive Chairman Lachlan Murdoch in falsely accusing the company of rigging the 2020 presidential election.
The complaint filed in Delaware Superior Court essentially takes up where Dominion’s March complaint against Fox News left off.
While much of it focuses on alleged defamatory statements made against the company on Fox News both before and after the election, it also claims the company has been trying to shield the Murdoch’s since the original lawsuit was filed.
Since the original suit was filed, Dominion claims, “Fox News has disclaimed any responsibility for searching or producing the Murdochs’ documents, or working to facilitate any discovery from Fox Corporation at all — despite Fox Corporation’s clear involvement (through Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, and others) in managing Fox News, including through editorial input and control.”
Dominion asserts Fox Corp. and its conservative news enterprise continued to push the conspiracy theory because they were afraid of losing viewers who supported Trump.
The claims were repeatedly made on-air by Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s main lawyers in the fight to overturn the election results, and former Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell, the complaint says.
Dominion is asking the court to force Fox Corp. and the Fox Broadcasting Co. to release a slew of internal documents related to the Murdochs so that it can determine how involved they were in spreading the bogus claims.
Those claims included the widely discredited charge that Dominion somehow conspired with foreign hackers to take votes away from then-President Donald Trump and give them to his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden.
In a statement, Fox Corp. responded to the new complaint by saying it “changes nothing of substance in this case.”
“Fox is proud of our 2020 election coverage, which stands in the highest tradition of American journalism, and we will continue to vigorously defend against this baseless lawsuit in Court,” the statement said.
In the meantime, Fox News has filed a motion to dismiss the March lawsuit on the grounds the network’s reporting on claims about election fraud is protected by the First Amendment. The judge has not indicated when he might rule on the motion.
Dan can be reached at [email protected] and at https://twitter.com/DanMcCue
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