On Nov. 30, 2020, Sean Hannity hosted Sidney Powell on his prime-time Fox Information program. As she had in lots of different interviews round that point — on Fox and elsewhere in right-wing media — Powell, a former federal prosecutor, spun wild conspiracy theories about what she mentioned was “corruption all throughout the nation, in numerous districts,” in a plot to steal reelection from the president, Donald Trump.
On the heart of this imagined plot had been machines from Dominion Voting Techniques, which Powell claimed ran an algorithm that switched votes for Trump to votes for Joe Biden. Dominion machines, she insisted, had been getting used “to trash giant batches of votes.”
Hannity interrupted her with a mild query that had been circulating amongst election deniers, regardless of a scarcity of supporting proof: Why had been Democrats silencing whistleblowers who may show this fraud?
Did Hannity consider any of this?
“I didn’t consider it for one second.”
That was the reply Hannity gave, underneath oath, in a deposition in Dominion’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit in opposition to Fox Information, in line with info disclosed in a court docket listening to Wednesday. The listening to was referred to as to deal with a number of points that must be resolved earlier than the case heads for a jury trial, which the choose has scheduled to start in April.
Hannity’s disclosure — together with others that emerged from court docket Wednesday about what Fox Information executives and hosts actually believed as their community turned one of many loudest megaphones for lies in regards to the 2020 election — is among the many strongest proof but to emerge publicly that some Fox staff knew that what they had been broadcasting was false.
The excessive authorized customary of proof in defamation circumstances makes it troublesome for a corporation comparable to Dominion to prevail in opposition to a media group like Fox Information. Dominion has to influence a jury that folks at Fox had been, in impact, saying one factor in personal whereas telling their viewers precisely the alternative. And that requires exhibiting a jury convincing proof that speaks to the mind-set of those that had been making the selections on the community.
In Delaware Superior Courtroom on Wednesday, Dominion’s attorneys argued that they’d obtained ample proof to make that case.
One lawyer for Dominion mentioned that “not a single Fox witness” thus far had produced something supporting the varied false claims in regards to the firm that had been uttered repeatedly on the community. And in some circumstances, different high-profile hosts and senior executives echoed Hannity’s doubts about what Trump and his allies like Powell had been saying, in line with the Dominion lawyer, Stephen Shackelford.
This included Meade Cooper, who oversees prime-time programming for Fox Information, and prime-time star Tucker Carlson, Shackelford mentioned.
“Most of the highest-ranking Fox folks have admitted underneath oath that they by no means believed the Dominion lies,” he mentioned, naming Cooper and Carlson.
Shackelford described how Carlson had “tried to squirm out of it at his deposition” when requested about what he actually believed.
Shackelford began to elaborate about what Carlson had mentioned privately, telling the choose in regards to the existence of textual content messages the host had despatched in November and December of 2020. However the choose, Eric M. Davis, lower him off, leaving the precise contents of these texts unknown.
A spokesperson for Fox Information had no fast remark.
One other beforehand unknown element emerged on Wednesday about what was occurring contained in the Fox universe in these frantic weeks after the election. A second lawyer representing Dominion, Justin Nelson, advised Davis about proof obtained by Dominion exhibiting that an worker of Fox Corp., the father or mother firm of Fox Information, had tried to intervene with the White Home to cease Powell. In line with Nelson, that worker referred to as the fraud claims “outlandish” and pressed Trump’s workers to do away with Powell, who was advising the president on submitting authorized challenges to the outcomes.
Nelson mentioned that proof lower straight to the center of whether or not Fox Corp., which is managed by Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, was additionally responsible for defamation. Davis dominated in June that Dominion may sue the bigger, extremely worthwhile company, which incorporates the Fox community on primary tv and a profitable sports activities broadcasting division.
A spokesperson for Fox Corp. had no fast remark.
Over the past a number of months, Denver-based Dominion has been combing by mountains of personal e mail and textual content messages from folks at each stage of Fox Information and Fox Corp. — hosts like Hannity, senior executives and midlevel producers. A lawyer for Fox, Dan Ok. Webb, mentioned Wednesday that the corporate had produced greater than 52,000 paperwork for Dominion, with extra to return.
Throughout the listening to, the choose was requested to rule on a number of points. One was whether or not a second voting firm that’s suing Fox for defamation, Smartmatic, may very well be given entry to the paperwork Dominion had obtained for its case. Davis dominated in Fox’s favor, denying Smartmatic’s movement.
A second problem was whether or not sure proof that Dominion has used in opposition to Fox in its court docket filings — together with emails amongst Fox staff and a web page from a deposition by which somebody from Fox describes the journalistic processes of one of many community’s applications — ought to be made public.
All through the case, Fox has requested the court docket to maintain nearly every little thing within the case pertaining to its interior workings underneath seal. A 3rd lawyer for Dominion, Davida Brook, argued Wednesday that the general public had a elementary proper to see what it had filed with the court docket within the curiosity of fostering the openness {that a} democracy requires.
Davis disagreed, ruling that the proof would keep underneath seal. However he admonished the attorneys that neither social gathering within the case ought to be overly aggressive in making an attempt to maintain info within the case confidential.
If, as an example, somebody says one thing “not vibrant” — and due to this fact embarrassing — that wouldn’t be sufficient to maintain that info underneath seal, Davis mentioned.
“That’s too dangerous,” he mentioned.
This text initially appeared in The New York Instances.