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Fox News' legal defense appears to have taken on a new strategy in the company's fight against a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems for the network's alleged lies about the company during the 2020 presidential election: blaming Donald Trump.
Currently facing a $1.6 billion defamation case for repeatedly airing false claims related to the 2020 presidential election, Fox News has faced allegations by Dominion that network executives actively encouraged on-air personalities to mislead their audience about the security of the 2020 presidential election, even as many privately expressed doubts about the veracity of former President Trump's claims of election fraud.
Because of this, Dominion has argued that the network's executives sought to undermine the company's reputation in an attempt to retain its conservative audience and boost Trump's baseless claims the election was "rigged" against him, all the while using deliberate distortions of the truth.
Now Fox News—which once tried to downplay the role of its executive leadership in the suit—now appears to be blaming Trump.
The night before the trial's scheduled start, attorneys for Fox News filed documents imploring the judge overseeing the case to allow them to introduce evidence arguing the company's allegedly defamatory claims against Dominion's voting machines were primarily inspired by Trump's own rhetoric that the election—with Dominion's involvement—was specifically rigged against him.
Such a development, if accepted, could play a key role in the development of the case. To successfully win a defamation suit, the allegedly defamed entity would have to prove the person or organization who defamed it did so with harmful intent.
Because Trump was the president, Fox News' attorneys argued, his comments about the company were therefore newsworthy, raising questions about whether the conservative network's personalities were acting with "actual malice" in repeating them on the air.
In deciding whether Fox News and its reporters willfully defamed Dominion, its attorneys argued, members of the jury should be asked to decide whether "allegations being made by a sitting U.S. president have credibility because of who is making the allegations."
Newsweek has reached out to attorneys for Fox News and Dominion via email for comment. However, Trump appeared to respond to the developments in a post on his Truth Social platform on Monday, encouraging Fox's attorneys to double down on his repeated claims the election was stolen from him.
"IF FOX WOULD FINALLY ADMIT THAT THERE WAS LARGE SCALE CHEATING & IRREGULARITIES IN THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, WHICH WOULD BE A GOOD THING FOR THEM, & FOR AMERICA, THE CASE AGAINST THEM, WHICH SHOULD NOT HAVE EXISTED AT ALL, WOULD BE GREATLY WEAKENED," Trump wrote, before naming off a list of perceived issues with the elections alongside the security of the Dominion machines.
"FOX NEWS IS IN BIG TROUBLE IF THEY DO NOT EXPOSE THE TRUTH ON CHEATING IN THE 2020 ELECTION," he added in a second post. "THEY SHOULD DO WHAT'S RIGHT FOR AMERICA. WHEN RUPERT MURDOCH SAYS THAT THERE WAS NO CHEATING IN LIGHT OF THE MASSIVE PROOF THAT WAS THERE, IT IS RIDICULOUS AND VERY HARMFUL TO THE FOX CASE. PERHAPS HE SHOULD SAY THAT 'HE JUST DIDN'T KNOW,' BUT THAT IS HARD TO BELIEVE."
"RUPERT, JUST TELL THE TRUTH AND GOOD THINGS WILL HAPPEN," he concluded. "THE ELECTION OF 2020 WAS RIGGED AND STOLLEN...YOU KNOW IT, & SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE!"
The filings come after a series of dramatic twists in the case that have delayed the trial one day later than its scheduled start.
Last week, attorneys for Fox News were reprimanded by Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis after withholding audio recordings of Fox News host Maria Bartiromo's communications with Trump attorneys during the election and providing misleading information about co-founder Rupert Murdoch's role with the company at the time of the 2020 election, leading Davis to question the credibility of the defense.
On Sunday night, however, attorneys for Fox argued in a new filing that Dominion had allegedly slashed the damages the company was seeking to just $600 million, well below the $1.6 billion the company originally sought. That same day, The Wall Street Journal—which is owned by a subsidiary of Murdoch's News Corp.—reported that Fox had made a late push to settle the dispute with Dominion Voting Systems out of court.
Some have speculated the most recent developments could signify a change in the trial's trajectory and, potentially, lead to the two entities drawing up a settlement in the case.
On Monday morning, Davis announced the trial's originally scheduled Monday start would be delayed by one day.
No explanation was given.
About the writer
Nick Reynolds is a senior politics reporter at Newsweek. A native of Central New York, he previously worked as a ... Read more