Court documents from Dominion Voting System's ongoing defamation lawsuit against Fox News show the network's executives and prime-time lineup privately doubted former President Donald Trump's claims of widespread voter fraud after losing reelection. However, some of them expressed fear that any fact-checkers might alienate their audience.
In a text message to his producer, Tucker Carlson said that “Sydney Powell is lying.” Behind the scenes, News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch called Rudy Giuliani's defense of the former president “crazy stuff.”
However, the network is adamant that it never knowingly made false claims.
Months of depositions and evidence were made public Thursday.
As The Hill reports:
Top network hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham in text messages referred to the voter fraud allegations made by Trump and his associates as “insane” while network leadership debated how rebuking those claims on the air might hurt the conservative media giant's reputation with its viewers, according to the filing.
Correspondence and testimony from top talent and executives at the network were made public as part of an ongoing defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting System against Fox News and its parent company, seeking $1.6 Billion in damages, for what the voting software company says was Fox's broadcasting of information about it that the network's leaders knew were false.
At one point, Laura Ingraham's producer messaged network management, saying her “BS” about the election would wind up giving him “a f*cking aneurysm.”
Around the same time, Tucker Carlson wanted Fox News' prime-time hosts to pressure network execs to fire reporter Jacqui Heinrich for fact-checking Trump.
“Please get her fired,” Carlson messaged Sean Hannity. “Seriously… What the f*ck?”
Page 31 in the legal filing detailed Carlson's request, which included concerns about FOX Corporation's declining stock price:
In their group text thread, Carlson pointed Hannity to a tweet by Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich. Heinrich was “fact checking” a tweet by Trump that mentioned Dominion and specifically mentioned Hannity's and Dobbs' broadcasts that evening discussing Dominion. Heinrich correctly fact-checked the tweet, pointing out that “top election infrastructure officials” said that “‘There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.'”
Carlson told Hannity: “Please get her fired. Seriously… What the fuck? 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.” Tucker added, I just went crazy on Meade over it. Hannity said he had “already sent to Suzanne with a really?” He then added: “I'm 3 strikes. Wallace shit debate[.] Election night a disaster[.] Now this BS? Nope. Not gonna fly. Did I mention Cavuto?”
Representatives for Fox said the messages were cherry-picked out of context, saying the case boils down to freedom of the press and freedom of speech. The network added in a statement that these are “fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan.”
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The real fraud of the 2020 election was committed by State Election Boards and officials who changed voting laws, dates and means without the proper actions by their State Legislatures. They took it upon themselves to make up new rules, ostensibly due to Covid-19, without going through the proper, Constitutionally required, channels and processes.
The fact that the Courts did not accept any lawsuits based on that simple fact is mind-boggling. Millions of everyday Americans, without law degrees, saw it happening and recognized it for what it was, but apparently it passed right by the “experts” and was ignored. THAT is the fraud that cost Trump the election and now we are all paying for it. Shameful!
You must not be able to read. Tell a lie often enough and it will be believed by people like you. Take a look and what former President Donald Trump is saying now – “the mistake was in not advocating for Republican early/mail-in voting, Republican vote-harvesting, and insisting on election day balloting”
That he (and FOX) then proceeded to compound and exacerbate their denial by blaming Dominion is now indisputable. As is the fact that those who preach the former President’s message are exposed as two-faced hypocrites who knew better is just one more exclamation point on the reason why control of the House, Senate, and Presidency changed hands -none of which can be blamed on rules or the pandemic.
VOTING IS AN EVENT; DEMOCRACY IS A PROCESS
CONCEPTS:
This nation is a constitutional republic whereby the chief executive (president) is tasked with the maintenance thereof. A republic is a form of government which is based upon the principles of democracy whereby its citizens vote directly for legislation or indirectly through its representatives. The democratic process requires ubiquitous information
Our representatives (law makers) are called Senators (100) and Representatives (435) and act as agents for We, the People. Their individual and collective tasks are to do their best to benefit their principals, We, the People, i.e., not for themselves or their Parties. These same concepts also apply to any elective Office, state, municipal, or otherwise. The contract governing the relationship between the principals and their agents is the U.S. Constitution.
Democracy is a process whereby a citizen accumulates information over time and utilizes that information to make a decision (vote) which is an event. The information must be ubiquitous and should be freely discussed among We, the People. A decision is best made with the greatest amount of information, i.e., a decision (event) made lacking information is qualitatively inferior to a decision made with more information. Perhaps the most important element of a functional democracy is the Fourth Estate which must employ he tools of truth and objectivity
DISCUSSION:
Whereas a national vote, up until the pandemic, had been held on one day, being the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, it has morphed into being held on a number of days which diminishes the quality of our efforts to achieve a rational and functional democracy, since
Debates are integral components to achieve a democracy, thus the withholding of debates should be viewed as adversely affecting the democratic process. The withholding of any information should be considered as the antithesis of the democratic process. The protocol of withholding any information within any number of days prior to an election (event) must be characterized as damaging democracy (process).
An election with misleading information or the withholding of exculpatory information does not promote a functional democracy and without a functional democracy, a vote is meaningless.
An effort to transfer power by the certification of a vote must be questioned if it can be shown the process (democracy) had material defects which, if corrected, could affect the results of an election (event).
Consideration should be given that legislation is passed that outright political lies must be considered as serious felonies, e.g., in 2012, Senator harried Reid (Nevada) claimed that Mitt Romney had not paid his income taxes; after the election, a reporter asked the Senator why he had lied. Reid responded “who won?”. Another example is Representative Adam Schiff who is the Chair of the Intelligence Committee and for more than two years claimed he had seen the evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump Administration while behind closed doors, he said he didn’t know anything. His lies and others had a substantial effect upon the 2018 Mid-terms. As long as these political lies continue, we will not enjoy a democracy.
The best resolution is a truthful, objective, and investigative Fourth Estate.
A vote is worthless without an equitable process.
As always, all comments will be appreciated, especially opposing points of view if accompanied by the rational for such opposition.
Many thanks,
d. michael zitterman
INDEPENDENT
[email protected]
November 19, 2022
Personal texting or even general texting is not saying something on a TV show. I don’t text at all but I watch TV from morning to bed time. How does the texting prove it was repeated or said on a TV show. I notice Dominion never mentions that Pelosi and her husband had major money in Dominion. How convenient. None of the night time TV hosts had major or minor money in Dominion. TV is also free speech, having machines that send information to China or effect the election in some way is not free speech, it is election fraud. Too bad the democrat judges in our law system don’t want to allow investigations into election fraud. That is where the blockage is and Dominion is using that blockage to their advantage.