By Helen Coster and Jack Queen
(Reuters) -A new filing from Dominion Voting Systems became public on Monday, as an April trial approaches in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought by the voting technology company against Fox News over the U.S. cable news giant’s coverage of the 2020 presidential election.
“Executives at all levels of Fox — both (Fox News Network) and (Fox Corporation) — knowingly opened Fox’s airwaves to false conspiracy theories about Dominion,” Dominion wrote in its filing, unsealed Monday.
In the filing, Dominion opposed Fox’s motion for summary judgment, which sought a ruling in their favor that would preempt the need for a trial. Dominion sued Fox News Networks and parent company Fox Corp in March 2021 and November 2021 in Delaware Superior Court, alleging the cable TV network amplified false claims that Dominion voting machines were used to rig the 2020 election against former President Donald Trump, a Republican who lost to Democratic rival Joe Biden.
Dominion has argued that internal communications and depositions by Fox personnel prove the network knowingly spread falsehoods about Trump’s loss in the 2020 U.S. presidential election in order to bolster its ratings. Fox has argued that its coverage of claims by Trump’s lawyers were inherently newsworthy and protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Dominion’s motion for summary judgment was replete with emails and statements in which Fox Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch and other top Fox executives say the claims made about Dominion on-air were false – part of the voting machine company’s effort to prove the network either knew the statements it aired were false or recklessly disregarded their accuracy. That is the standard of “actual malice,” which public figures must prove to prevail in a defamation case.
Fox defended its coverage in its own summary judgment motion unsealed Feb. 16, arguing it had a right to report on election-fraud allegations made by Trump and his lawyers and saying Dominion’s lawsuit would stifle freedom of the press. The underlying exhibits for many of the statements referenced in Dominion’s motion for summary judgment remain under seal. Fox has said Dominion took them out of context.
A five-week trial is scheduled to begin on April 17.
Fox did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Helen Coster and Jack Queen in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)
