Bill Barr subpoenaed in Dominion's 1.6 Billion defamation case against Fox
Who do you think will regret that more Bill Barr or Rubert Murdock?
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ElwoodBlues · M
Murdoch will have YUGE regrets! Here are some juicy details on the upcoming Dominion vs Fox lawsuit.
In the weeks after President Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 election, the Fox Business host Lou Dobbs claimed to have “tremendous evidence” that voter fraud was to blame. That evidence never emerged but a new culprit in a supposed scheme to rig the election did: Dominion Voting Systems, a maker of election technology whose algorithms, Mr. Dobbs said, “were designed to be inaccurate.”
Maria Bartiromo, another host on the network, falsely stated that “Nancy Pelosi has an interest in this company.” Jeanine Pirro, a Fox News personality, speculated that “technical glitches” in Dominion’s software “could have affected thousands of absentee mail-in ballots.”
Those unfounded accusations are now among the dozens cited in Dominion’s defamation lawsuit against the Fox Corporation, which alleges that Fox repeatedly aired false, far-fetched and exaggerated allegations about Dominion and its purported role in a plot to steal votes from Mr. Trump.
First Amendment scholars say the case is a rarity in libel law. Defamation claims typically involve a single disputed statement. But Dominion’s complaint is replete with example after example of false statements, many of them made after the facts were widely known. And such suits are often quickly dismissed, because of the First Amendment’s broad free speech protections and the high-powered lawyers available to a major media company like Fox. If they do go forward, they are usually settled out of court to spare both sides the costly spectacle of a trial.
But Dominion’s $1.6 billion case against Fox has been steadily progressing in Delaware state court this summer, inching ever closer to trial. There have been no moves from either side toward a settlement, according to interviews with several people involved in the case. The two companies are deep into document discovery, combing through years of each other’s emails and text messages, and taking depositions.
. . .
For Dominion to convince a jury that Fox should be held liable for defamation and pay damages, it has to clear an extremely high legal bar known as the “actual malice” standard. Dominion must show either that people inside Fox knew what hosts and guests were saying about the election technology company was false, or that they effectively ignored information proving that the statements in question were wrong — which is known in legal terms as displaying a reckless disregard for the truth.
A judge recently ruled that Dominion had met that actual malice standard “at this stage,” allowing it to expand the scope of its case against Fox and the kind of evidence it can seek from the company’s senior executives.
In late June, Judge Eric M. Davis of Delaware Superior Court denied a motion from Fox that would have excluded the parent Fox Corporation from the case — a much larger target than Fox News itself. That business encompasses the most profitable parts of the Murdoch American media portfolio and is run directly by Rupert Murdoch, 91, who serves as chairman, and his elder son, Lachlan, the chief executive.
. . .
According to court filings, the words and phrases that Fox has asked Dominion to search for in internal communications going back more than a decade include “Chavez” and “Hugo,” along with “tampered,” “backdoor,” “stolen” and “Trump.”
. . .
In one interview, Mr. Giuliani falsely claimed that Dominion was owned by a Venezuelan company with close ties to Mr. Chavez, and that it was formed “to fix elections.” (Dominion was founded in Canada in 2002 by a man who wanted to make it easier for blind people to vote.)
Mr. Dobbs, who conducted one of the interviews cited in Dominion’s complaint, responded encouragingly to Mr. Giuliani, saying he believed he was witnessing “the endgame to a four-and-a-half-year-long effort to overthrow the president of the United States.” Fox canceled Mr. Dobbs’s Fox Business show last year, though it has never issued a retraction for any of the commentary about Dominion.
Dominion has also filed separate lawsuits against Mr. Giuliani, Ms. Powell and Mr. Lindell.
Dominion says in its complaint that in the weeks after the election, people started leaving violent voice mail messages at its offices, threatening to execute everyone who worked there and blow up the headquarters. At one office, someone hurled a brick through a window. The company had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on security and lost hundreds of millions more in business, according to its complaint.
“The harm to Dominion from the lies told by Fox is unprecedented and irreparable because of how fervently millions of people believed them — and continue to believe them,” its complaint said.
Maria Bartiromo, another host on the network, falsely stated that “Nancy Pelosi has an interest in this company.” Jeanine Pirro, a Fox News personality, speculated that “technical glitches” in Dominion’s software “could have affected thousands of absentee mail-in ballots.”
Those unfounded accusations are now among the dozens cited in Dominion’s defamation lawsuit against the Fox Corporation, which alleges that Fox repeatedly aired false, far-fetched and exaggerated allegations about Dominion and its purported role in a plot to steal votes from Mr. Trump.
First Amendment scholars say the case is a rarity in libel law. Defamation claims typically involve a single disputed statement. But Dominion’s complaint is replete with example after example of false statements, many of them made after the facts were widely known. And such suits are often quickly dismissed, because of the First Amendment’s broad free speech protections and the high-powered lawyers available to a major media company like Fox. If they do go forward, they are usually settled out of court to spare both sides the costly spectacle of a trial.
But Dominion’s $1.6 billion case against Fox has been steadily progressing in Delaware state court this summer, inching ever closer to trial. There have been no moves from either side toward a settlement, according to interviews with several people involved in the case. The two companies are deep into document discovery, combing through years of each other’s emails and text messages, and taking depositions.
. . .
For Dominion to convince a jury that Fox should be held liable for defamation and pay damages, it has to clear an extremely high legal bar known as the “actual malice” standard. Dominion must show either that people inside Fox knew what hosts and guests were saying about the election technology company was false, or that they effectively ignored information proving that the statements in question were wrong — which is known in legal terms as displaying a reckless disregard for the truth.
A judge recently ruled that Dominion had met that actual malice standard “at this stage,” allowing it to expand the scope of its case against Fox and the kind of evidence it can seek from the company’s senior executives.
In late June, Judge Eric M. Davis of Delaware Superior Court denied a motion from Fox that would have excluded the parent Fox Corporation from the case — a much larger target than Fox News itself. That business encompasses the most profitable parts of the Murdoch American media portfolio and is run directly by Rupert Murdoch, 91, who serves as chairman, and his elder son, Lachlan, the chief executive.
. . .
According to court filings, the words and phrases that Fox has asked Dominion to search for in internal communications going back more than a decade include “Chavez” and “Hugo,” along with “tampered,” “backdoor,” “stolen” and “Trump.”
. . .
In one interview, Mr. Giuliani falsely claimed that Dominion was owned by a Venezuelan company with close ties to Mr. Chavez, and that it was formed “to fix elections.” (Dominion was founded in Canada in 2002 by a man who wanted to make it easier for blind people to vote.)
Mr. Dobbs, who conducted one of the interviews cited in Dominion’s complaint, responded encouragingly to Mr. Giuliani, saying he believed he was witnessing “the endgame to a four-and-a-half-year-long effort to overthrow the president of the United States.” Fox canceled Mr. Dobbs’s Fox Business show last year, though it has never issued a retraction for any of the commentary about Dominion.
Dominion has also filed separate lawsuits against Mr. Giuliani, Ms. Powell and Mr. Lindell.
Dominion says in its complaint that in the weeks after the election, people started leaving violent voice mail messages at its offices, threatening to execute everyone who worked there and blow up the headquarters. At one office, someone hurled a brick through a window. The company had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on security and lost hundreds of millions more in business, according to its complaint.
“The harm to Dominion from the lies told by Fox is unprecedented and irreparable because of how fervently millions of people believed them — and continue to believe them,” its complaint said.