- A massive and coordinated effort to steal this election.
- Electoral fraud that would be perpetrated
through electronic voting.
- They used the machines to trash large batches of votes.
- [Narrator] Claims like these are at the center
of a $1.6 billion defamation case against Fox News.
Dominion Voting Systems sued the broadcaster in 2021
over alleged defamatory on-air comments
that tied the company's voting machines
to false claims of election fraud in 2020.
- This case really examines that line between what is
journalism and what should be protected
and what shouldn't be.
- [Narrator] From internal text messages
to high profile depositions,
here's what you need to know about the case.
During the 2020 presidential election, voting machine maker
Dominion had contracts in 28 states.
And after former president Donald Trump lost,
Fox had his associates on broadcasts.
- Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani
claiming that Dominion rigged the election
in favor of President Joe Biden.
- [Narrator] Federal and state officials have said
there is no evidence that any voting system deleted
or changed votes during the 2020 election.
The company argues that by airing those claims,
Fox News gave them prominence, even though they were false.
Fox says that it was reporting
on newsworthy claims from a sitting President
and his associates that other media outlets also covered.
Dominion's main argument is that
Fox News knowingly broadcast false claims
about its machines,
because it had a financial incentive to do so.
Fox has denied that allegation.
- Many executives in a lot
of these email communications were expressing
a lot of angst about losing viewership.
- [Narrator] So Dominion alleges that Fox leaned
into the false claims to keep its viewers.
In released court filings, Dominion says that
internal communications among Fox hosts and staff
prove that Fox knew the claims were false,
like a text message from Tucker Carlson to his producer,
which said, "Sidney Powell is lying."
And another one he sent to Laura Ingram that said,
"It's unbelievably offensive to me.
Our viewers are good people and they believe it."
And in her deposition, Fox host Maria Bartiromo
called an email regarding the election fraud claims
from Powell, "Kooky and unreliable."
But on her show a day after receiving the email...
- Sidney, we talked about the Dominion software.
I know that there were voting irregularities.
Tell me about that.
- That's to put it mildly.
The computer glitches could not and should not
have happened at all.
That is where the fraud took place,
where they were flipping votes
in the computer system or adding votes that did not exist.
- All of these domain will use to say Fox
had a disregard for the facts of the case.
- [Narrator] Fox says that its on-air hosts
didn't make the Dominion election fraud claims themselves.
Dominion also released a deposition
from Fox Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch,
who also owns News Corp,
the parent company of the Wall Street Journal.
- He did acknowledge that some of the broadcast
did endorse claims of a false election
as opposed to simply reporting on them,
and he acknowledged that he could have stopped
it from happening.
Fox says that these quotes were cherry picked
from the deposition, but those statements on their own,
Dominion will try to use to show that
executives like Rupert Murdoch,
had control over these decisions that were made on air.
- [Narrator] The judge said prior to the trial
that he would require Murdoch
and other Fox Corp executives to testify,
if Dominion subpoenaed them.
In a statement, Fox said
demanding witnesses who had nothing to do
with the challenged broadcasts is just the latest example
of their political crusade
in search of a financial windfall.
Fox also says the lawsuit is an attack on press freedom.
The 1964 Supreme Court case,
New York Times versus Sullivan,
says that plaintiffs suing for defamation
must be able to prove that the publisher had actual malice.
- Which means that you knew that the information was wrong
or you had a reckless disregard for the truth
in publishing it.
- [Narrator] It's a historically high bar to meet,
and Fox says that Dominion's evidence doesn't clear it.
- They say that some of the statements
that have been highlighted,
text messages expressing doubt were simply cherry picked.
They believe that the host did express,
in some extent, expressed enough skepticism on air.
- Like here when Tucker Carlson said
he invited Powell to back up her claims with evidence.
- But she never sent us any evidence
despite a lot of requests, polite requests, not a page.
- [Narrator] Dominion says that the emails, texts,
and deposition testimony speak for themselves.
In late March, Judge Eric Davis ruled the case
should go to a jury trial.
- The judge also rejected Fox's arguments that they
should be protected by the First Amendment,
and that they could have a shield
for reporting allegations neutrally.
- [Narrator] Fox says that the newsworthiness
of the statements at issue are clear and indisputable.
The judge also said that Dominion had proof
that claims the company had rigged the election
for Joe Biden were false.
Days before the trial was set to begin,
Judge Davis said he was likely to investigate,
whether Fox News improperly
withheld information during litigation.
He also said Fox might face sanctions.
Fox News said it didn't improperly withhold information
from Dominion and produced additional materials,
when it became aware of them.
So the trial will likely focus on whether Dominion
can prove Fox acted with actual malice,
and if it suffered financial damages as a result.
- This trial is a rare example of a defamation case
making it all the way to trial.
And it's particularly important
because Fox News is a huge name in media,
and they have a lot of influence,
and so it'll be in some ways a test of this
very difficult standard of defamation.
(gentle music)