Court Papers - Revelations about Fox News during 2020

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A filing in Delaware state court by Dominion Voting Systems as part of the company’s blockbuster lawsuit against Fox News and its parent company contains never-before-revealed vignettes from inside the network in the days that followed the 2020 election.

Text messages, e-mails and testimony contained in the filing show the outlet’s top executives and hosts casting doubt on former President Trump’s false claims of a stolen election, and worrying about how fact-checking those assertions on the air might be received by the conservative media outlet’s massive audience.

Dominion is suing Fox for defamation, seeking $1.6 billion in damages, alleging the network knowingly aired false information about its software based on competitive and political pressure.

Fox has argued in legal filings and public statements it was simply covering Trump’s allegations about voter fraud as any news organization would, and is accusing Dominion’s lawyers of “cherry picking quotes” from its employees in this week’s filing to build a stronger case.

“There will be a lot of noise and confusion generated by Dominion and their opportunistic private equity owners, but the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan,” the network said in a statement this week.

Leading hosts called foul on ‘insane’ Powell, Giuliani claims
The filing includes a number of text messages and emails between Fox’s top talent showing them insulting pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, who made many of the on-air claims at the center of the suit.

“Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane,” Tucker Carlson wrote to fellow prime-time host Laura Ingraham on Nov. 18, according to the filing.

“Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy,” Ingraham purportedly responded, apparently referring to Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Carlson at one point allegedly confronted Powell directly about her claims, saying, “You keep telling our viewers that millions of votes were changed by the software. I hope you will prove that very soon. You’ve convinced them that Trump will win. If you don’t have conclusive evidence of fraud at that scale, it’s a cruel and reckless thing to keep saying.”

Carlson and Hannity talked about getting Fox reporters fired for fact checking Trump
The filing alleges Carlson and Sean Hannity floated the idea of pressuring network leaders to fire Fox White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich after she fact-checked a tweet from Trump promoting some of the Dominion claims.

The filing says Carlson told Hannity, “Please get her fired. Seriously….What the f**k? I’m actually shocked…It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.”

Hannity then told Carlson, “I’m 3 strikes. Wallace s**t debate[.] Election night a disaster[.] Now this BS? Nope. Not gonna fly. Did I mention Cavuto?”

The two hosts weren’t the only ones taking issue with reporters’ fact checking, Dominion alleges.

After White House correspondent Kristin Fisher fact-checked claims that Powell and Giuliani made at a Nov. 19, 2020, press conference, Dominion claims that Fox’s executives “were not pleased.”

Washington Bureau Chief Bryan Boughton allegedly called Fisher and told her that she needed to do a better job of “respecting our audience.”

Fox leadership worried about getting flanked to the right
As Trump grew increasingly critical of Fox in the weeks leading up to and after the election, Dominion alleges that some at the network became concerned about the brief ascendance of Newsmax, a smaller conservative channel that aired many of Trump’s false election fraud claims.

Dominion alleges Carlson texted a producer on his weeknight primetime show: “Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we’ve lost with our audience? We’re playing with fire, for real….an alternative like newsmax could be devastating to us.”

In an exchange among executives one week after the election, Lauren Petterson, the president of Fox Business Network, purportedly wrote of Newsmax, “they definitely have a strategy across all shows to try to target and steal our viewers.”

Dominion further alleged that Jay Wallace, the president of Fox News Channel, at one point wrote, “The Newsmax surge is a bit troubling—truly is an alternative universe when you watch, but it can’t be ignored.”

Murdoch dismissed Trump’s election claims
When Rupert Murdoch watched Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell make false claims of electoral fraud on November 19, he told Suzanne Scott: “Terrible stuff damaging everybody, I fear,” according to the filing.

On January 5, a day before the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, Murdoch wrote to Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott saying “It’s been suggested our prime time three should independently or together say something like ‘the election is over and Joe Biden won,’” and that such a statement “would go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election stolen.”

Murdoch separately told Fox News leadership THAT Guiliani was to be taken “with a very large grain of salt,” and bemoaned the fact the former New York City mayor was advising Trump in the post-election period, the filing shows.

Fox prepping First Amendment defense in court, questions Dominion’s motives
Dominion’s case against Fox’s hinges on its ability to prove that the network acted with “actual malice,” or reckless disregard for the truth, a legal precedent that has been a high bar to clear for parties suing media companies and other publishers in recent years.

Fox has for months argued it was doing its journalistic duty covering the claims of electoral fraud coming from Trump and his team, and in a filing of its own this week said it “fulfilled its commitment to inform fully and comment fairly,” on Trump’s claims.

Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine!

Shut down Fox News and all non-left-leaning media!

Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine!

Shut down Fox News and all non-left-leaning media!

Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine!

Shut down Fox News and all non-left-leaning media!

And that in turn inspired left leaning content on MSNBC, and CNN.
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In the heat of the moment, right after Election Day 2020, media magnate Rupert Murdoch knew that the hosts on his prized Fox News Channel were endorsing lies from then-President Donald Trump about election fraud.

And he did nothing to intervene to stop it.

Instead, Murdoch, the network's controlling owner, followed the lead of the network's senior executives in sidestepping the truth for a pro-Trump audience angered when confronted by the facts.

Asked whether he could have told Fox News' chief executive and its stars to stop giving airtime to Rudy Giuliani — a key Trump campaign attorney peddling election lies — Murdoch assented. "I could have," Murdoch said. "But I didn't."

Speaking under oath, Murdoch confirmed the suggestion by a Dominion lawyer that Fox was "trying to straddle the line between spewing conspiracy theories on one hand, yet calling out the fact that they are actually false on the other."

Asked by a Dominion attorney whether "Fox endorsed at times this false notion of a stolen election," Murdoch demurred, saying, "Not Fox, no. Not Fox. But maybe Lou Dobbs, maybe Maria [Bartiromo] as commentators."

The lawyer pressed on. Did Fox's Bartiromo endorse it?

Murdoch's reply: "Yes. C'mon."

Fox News host Jeanine Pirro? "I think so."

Then-Fox Business Network host Dobbs? "Oh, a lot."

Fox News prime-time star Sean Hannity? "A bit."

Pressed whether they endorsed the narrative of a stolen election, Murdoch finally gave in: "Yes. They endorsed."

Dominion initially sued the network and its parent company separately. Fox Corp. has tried to sidestep the case, saying the decisions were left up to the executives and journalists within Fox News.

Similarly, Murdoch sought to distinguish between the two in his sworn remarks. When asked whether Fox News embraced the idea of election fraud, he pointed instead to his own stars: "No. Some of our commentators were endorsing it."

Fox Corp. argues that Dominion has produced no evidence showing that Rupert Murdoch; his son Lachlan Murdoch, Fox Corp.'s executive chairman; or other top corporate executives played a "direct role" in the decisions to air election-fraud claims. In their own filing Monday, Fox Corp.'s attorneys say the communications presented by Dominion that involve Fox executives are not directly related to the 115 allegedly defamatory statements at issue in the case.

Even so, Fox Corp.'s chief legal officer, Viet Dinh, acknowledged under oath that executives in the corporation's chain of command have an obligation "to prevent and correct known falsehoods."

Emails and other communications introduced into the case by Dominion reflect deep involvement by the Murdochs and other Fox Corp. senior figures in the network's editorial path.

Each Murdoch speaks roughly daily to Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott, she testified. (While Lachlan Murdoch confirmed his daily chat with Scott, Rupert Murdoch said it was only once or twice a week.)

"I'm a journalist at heart," the elder Murdoch, who is just two weeks shy of his 92nd birthday, said in his deposition. "I like to be involved in these things."

He had been resolute about defending Fox News' call of the key state of Arizona for Joe Biden on election night — Nov. 3, 2020. Murdoch testified that he could hear Trump shouting in the background as the then-president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, told him the situation was "terrible."

To which, Murdoch said he replied, "'Well, the numbers are the numbers.'"

Yet a panic set in as pro-Trump viewers abandoned Fox News following the Arizona call. And when hosts scrambled to promote Trump's false claims of fraud, Fox News executives seized on it as a valuable strategy, according to the evidence presented by Dominion, even as at least two of Fox's corporate directors and a top corporate official took exception.

By Nov. 5, Hannity was on the air saying, "It will be impossible to ever know the true, fair, accurate election results — that's a fact."

And Dinh was warning Lachlan Murdoch, Scott and a top deputy that "Hannity is getting awfully close to the line with his commentary and guests tonight." The next day, Rupert Murdoch warned that if Trump refused to concede graciously, "we should watch Sean especially and others don't sound the same."

On Nov. 7, Fox projected that Biden had won the election. The elder Murdoch told his son that Fox could have gone first once more, as it had in Arizona; "I think it's good to be careful," Lachlan Murdoch responded. "Especially as we are still somewhat exposed on Arizona."

On Nov. 8, Rupert Murdoch emailed Scott to say that Fox News was "[g]etting creamed" by CNN. Under oath, he later said that he, Scott and Lachlan Murdoch held "a long talk" about "the direction Fox should take" that day in response to the falling ratings. They decided together to give play to Trump's baseless assertions. "[T]his was big news," Murdoch said in his deposition. "The President of the United States was making wild claims, but that is news."

The next day, Scott wrote to Rupert Murdoch that Fox needed to retain "the audience who loves and trusts us. ... [W]e need to make sure they know we aren[']t abandoning them."

By Nov. 13, Raj Shah, a senior vice president at Fox Corp., was advising Lachlan Murdoch, Scott and Dinh of the "strong conservative and viewer backlash to Fox that we are working to track and mitigate."

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan, an anti-Trump Republican, sits on Fox Corp.'s board of directors. He said he told the Murdochs "that Fox News should not be spreading conspiracy theories." And he testified that he advised them that the post-election period represented an inflection point in which Fox could pivot away from its prior support for Trump.

Rupert Murdoch played an integral role in advising his two major U.S. newspapers — the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal — to editorialize against Trump's false claims. Trump's campaign lawyers, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, were no longer welcome on-air by mid-December.

On Jan. 8, Murdoch told a former executive that "Fox News [is] very busy pivoting. ... We want to make Trump a non person."

Fox Corp. board director Anne Dias wrote to the Murdochs on Jan. 11, 2021. "I believe the time has come for Fox News or for you, Lachlan, to take a stance. It is an existential moment for the nation and for Fox News as a brand."
Rupert Murdoch's turn to face questions in $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox News
Untangling Disinformation
Rupert Murdoch's turn to face questions in $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox News

Rupert advised Lachlan, "Just tell her ... Fox News, which called the election correctly, is pivoting as fast as possible. We have to lead our viewers which is [] not as easy as it might seem."

Behind the scenes, however, Fox News chief executive Scott had been wooing Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder, major advertiser and pro-Trump conspiracy theorist, according to Dominion's filing. Scott sent Lindell a personal note and a gift while encouraging Fox shows to book him as a guest to "get ratings."

On Jan. 26, Tucker Carlson had Lindell on his show. Rupert Murdoch told Dominion's attorneys he could stop taking money for MyPillow ads, "[B]ut I'm not about to."

An attorney for Dominion suggested, "It is not red or blue, it is green."

According to the filing, Murdoch agreed.

The aftermath of the 2020 presidential election sparked a civil war within Fox News, as the network that had spent years building record profits and ratings by catering to fans of then-President Donald Trump saw millions of those viewers peel away.

In private notes to one another, Fox's top stars spat fire at their reporting colleagues who debunked Trump's claims of election fraud, even as they gave those allegations no credence. "We are officially working for an organization that hates us," said prime-time host Laura Ingraham.

Reporters said they were being punished simply for doing their jobs. One producer told colleagues he was quitting because he could not justify working for Fox anymore.

And the network's chief executive, Suzanne Scott, said pressure from conservatives online meant that she couldn't defend "these reporters who don't understand our viewers and how to handle stories".

The internal strife at Fox stemmed from a single fateful decision blending journalism and broadcasting: Fox's dramatic election night 2020 projection of Joe Biden as the winner of Arizona. It was the first TV network to do so, and it made the prospect of a Trump victory remote.

The fury from the top was palpable. "I hate our Decision Desk people!" Fox Corp. boss Rupert Murdoch wrote on Nov. 7, the night the networks projected Biden would prevail nationally. He confided to Col Allan, the editor of his tabloid paper, The New York Post: "Just for the hell of it still praying for Az to prove them wrong!"

By mid-November, a small cadre of Fox reporters were debunking some of the lies and wild conspiracies of election projected by the Trump camp, often echoed on Fox's airwaves.

In a group chat of the network's three biggest prime-time stars on Nov. 15, Tucker Carlson noted that a segment by Fox reporter Eric Shawn was being used by the Daily Beast to assail Maria Bartiromo — one of the most pro-Trump hosts on the network.

"What are we all going to do [tomorrow] night," Ingraham responded. "I think 1-2-3 Punch."

Carlson wrote he didn't trust attorney Sidney Powell, who appeared on Fox repeatedly to allege Dominion committed fraud against Trump. Ingraham called her "a bit nuts." (Separately, Carlson wrote to an associate, "I hate [Trump] passionately.")

Yet they reserved their anger for their reporting colleagues, mocking, for example, Arnon Mishkin, the director of the Fox News Decision Desk. "Mishkin always made my skin crawl," she texted the other two prime-time hosts.

How much of the network's ratings "bleed is due to anger at the news channel?" Ingraham asked, adding "My anger at the news channel is pronounced."

"It should be," Carlson responded. "We devote our lives to building an audience and they let [Fox News Sunday host] Chris Wallace and [correspondent and anchor] Leland f------ Vittert wreck it."

"Let's be honest," Hannity joked. "Without Chris Wallace where would we be? We owe him everything."

Ingraham then prods her peers, saying "We have more power than we know or exercise."

The message was received at the network's top echelons.

Fox Corp. boss Lachlan Murdoch called Vittert "smug and obnoxious" for his coverage of pro-Trump rallies supporting ideas of electoral fraud.

And CEO Suzanne Scott and Fox News President Jay Wallace, the network's executive editor, exchanged irate notes a few days later after appearances by White House reporter Kristin Fisher.

On Nov. 19, Fisher appeared on Fox host Dana Perino's afternoon program knocking down claims made by Trump campaign attorney Rudy Giuliani. "That was certainly a colorful news conference from Rudy Giuliani but it was light on facts," Fisher told viewers that night. "So much of what he said was simply not true or has already been thrown out in court." And she unraveled many of Giuliani's false claims.
Rupert Murdoch says Fox stars 'endorsed' lies about 2020. He chose not to stop them
Media
Rupert Murdoch says Fox stars 'endorsed' lies about 2020. He chose not to stop them

Fox founder Rupert Murdoch was scathing about Giuliani in his own private remarks. So were other executives. But that night, Scott shot off an email to Jay Wallace calling Fisher's segment "editorializing."

"I can't keep defending these reporters who don't understand our viewers and how to handle stories," Scott wrote. "The audience feels like we crapped on [it] and we have damaged their trust and belief in us."

She concluded, "We can fix this but we cannot smirk at our viewers any longer."

Wallace replied, "She has been spoken to — internet definitely seized on it."

A Fox Corp. staffer warned of "a backlash from the pro-Trump orbit," citing social media posts from a trio of right-wing commentators who have spread baseless conspiracy theories.

Fisher vented to a colleague over the pressure she felt. The two women said they each had lost assignments to serve as guest anchor on news shows and their appearances on other programs had dried up. "I have had zero live shots from the [White House] except for [Special Report]," Fisher texted to reporter Gillian Turner.

"F---. Really?" Turner replied. "You think they pulled you from anchoring over that sh--?"

"100%," Fisher wrote. "I'm being punished for doing my job. Literally. That's it."
The 'wackadoodle' foundation of Fox News' election-fraud claims
Media
The 'wackadoodle' foundation of Fox News' election-fraud claims

In late November, Hannity chatted by text with Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy. It was Thanksgiving weekend, and Hannity sent a picture of his turkey. "This year is gonna suck my friend," Hannity texted Doocy. "'News' destroyed us'."

"Every day," replied Doocy. Nine seconds later, Hannity texted, "You don't piss off the base."

"They don't care," Doocy wrote, mockingly. "They are JOURNALISTS."

On Dec. 9, reporter Gillian Turner picked up the theme once more, writing to Kristin Fisher that she was no longer being asked to fill in as a host on the popular morning show Fox & Friends. "That makes two of us!" Fisher texted. "It's a sh-- network. I'm 100% being muzzled."

Phil Vogel wrote he was taking a pay cut and forgoing six weeks paid leave to get out. "The post election coverage of 'voter fraud' was the complete end," Vogel wrote, citing the birth of his daughter. "I realized I couldn't defend my employer to my daughter while trying to teach her to do what is right."

The network took two hours of political news programs and gave them to opinion hosts; it laid off a significant number of writers and reporters; and it forced out political director Chris Stirewalt and Washington Managing Editor Bill Sammon, both of whom were part of the decision desk team that made the Arizona projection for Biden.

Carlson's show feeding such baseless beliefs led Fox commentators Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes to leave Fox in fall 2021. Fox News Sunday's Chris Wallace followed suit a few weeks later, taking a job at CNN.