Audio Recordings Are 'Devastating' for Fox News and Trump: Kirschner

Legal analyst Glenn Kirschner said on Sunday that the audio recordings between a Fox News producer and a Trump campaign official are "devastating" for both parties in the ongoing lawsuit between Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News.

Dominion Voting Systems launched its suit against the conservative network alleging that it supported former President Donald Trump's unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen due to widespread voter fraud, while allegedly knowing they were untrue. Text messages released as part of the $1.6 billion lawsuit also revealed that some of the conservative network's hosts and executives were casting doubt on the former president's election fraud claims, while programs on the network suggested they were credible.

The lawsuit also alleges that Fox News hosts parroted Trump's and his allies' baseless claims that Dominion "flipped" votes from Trump to President Joe Biden, delivering him victories in key swing states.

A Fox News media spokesperson told Newsweek last month that the Dominion's case is built on an "unsupported" view of the defamation law, and that the case is centered around press freedom and freedom of speech.

"Dominion's lawsuit has always been more about what will generate headlines than what can withstand legal and factual scrutiny, as illustrated by them now being forced to slash their fanciful damages demand by more than half a billion dollars after their own expert debunked its implausible claims," the spokesperson said at the time.

While speaking on The Legal Breakdown podcast, Kirschner was asked about the audio recording between the Fox News producer and the Trump campaign official. In the audio, the Trump campaign official said that the voting machines were looked at and there was no physical issue with them, according to the secretary of state's audit. It is unclear from the audio which secretary of state the campaign official is talking about.

Kirschner then responded, "For Fox, it's from bad to worse. It really does feel like with all of this evidence showing that Fox was not only reckless in its broadcasting, but it was just intentionally broadcasting false information. And there are any number of recorded conversations that support that conclusion."

Kirschner continued: "When you have Trump campaign officials admitting that they didn't have any evidence of fraud in the Georgia election as a result of the Dominion voting machines, we heard reporting that Jack Smith has expanded his probe into Donald Trump and Trump's criminal associates for the crime of wire fraud, and I think this recording plays into that."

The audio recording, which is from December 2020, was released by Abby Grossberg, a former Fox News producer, and aired on MSNBC.

Grossberg is suing Fox News, alleging that she was "bullied, intimidated and coerced" into giving misleading testimony in the Dominion case. Fox has denied her allegation, which it described as "patently false."

A Fox News spokesperson told Newsweek on Sunday: "Dominion's lawsuit is a political crusade in search of a financial windfall, but the real cost would be cherished first amendment rights. While Dominion has pushed irrelevant and misleading information to generate headlines, FOX News remains steadfast in protecting the rights of a free press, given a verdict for Dominion and its private equity owners would have grave consequences for the entire journalism profession."

The trial was set to begin on Monday, but according to the Associated Press the Delaware judge overseeing the lawsuit pushed the start to Tuesday. In a statement sent to Newsweek on Saturday via email, a Dominion spokesperson said, "In the coming weeks, we will prove Fox spread lies causing enormous damage to Dominion. We look forward to trial."

This article was updated at 7:49 ET with the statement from a Fox News Spokesperson and again at 9:57 pm ET to reflect the new start date of the trial.