The start of a lawsuit over whether Fox News ran a smear campaign against a voting computer manufacturer has been postponed by a day. American media report that a settlement is being discussed behind the scenes.
The trial was supposed to start today, but the court has announced that it will postpone the start of the case for 24 hours. Manufacturer Dominion is demanding $1.5 billion because Fox News kept repeating that there was fraud in the 2020 presidential election and that Dominion’s voting machines were part of a conspiracy.
Dominion states that at Fox News they certainly knew that there was nothing wrong with those voting machines and that there was malicious intent. Fox News invokes freedom of the press. After all, former President Trump claimed that there was fraud in the 2020 election, a newsworthy fact.
Fox Owner: ‘Trump Myth’
Behind the scenes at the right-wing conservative news channel, Trump’s allegations were ridiculed, court documents have shown. Owner Rupert Murdoch called it “a Trump myth that the election results are stolen” in private emails. No evidence of large-scale voting fraud has ever been found.
The huge amount that Dominion is demanding, according to the company, is compensation for loss of revenue, reputational damage and also for the extra security that has to be hired due to the flood of threats that the company has received since the election.
‘A madman’
The smear campaign against voting computers, as the manufacturer sees it, started after Democrat Joe Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election. On Fox News, Sydney Powell, the attorney for loser Donald Trump, claimed without any evidence that the machines were faulty.
Presenters such as Laura Ingraham then continued to repeat this theory. But behind the scenes, she called attorney Powell a lunatic. “No one wants to work with her and the same goes for Rudy,” she referred to Trump’s other lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
‘Disinformation’
Fox News argues that these quotes were taken out of context in the court documents. In a statement, the channel accuses Dominion of spreading disinformation.
It is likely that leaders of the channel will be heard in the case. They include owner Murdoch and well-known opinion leaders such as Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.
The process is expected to take five to six weeks. At least: if it comes to a trial. The lawsuit will be dropped if the two parties reach a settlement.
- Capitol Storming Commission of Inquiry: Trump must be prosecuted
