The Fox News studios and headquarters in New York on March 21.
Ted Shaffrey/AP
A second day of pre-trial hearings in the billion-dollar Fox defamation lawsuit on Wednesday featured a Delaware judge declaring he would sanction Fox News and launch an investigation into Fox’s apparent failures to disclose information.
The trial, one of the most significant defamation cases in many years, is set to begin on Monday. Dominion Voting Systems, one of the leading makers of voting equipment, sued the conservative cable outlet in 2021 after it aired numerous false statements by guests and hosts baselessly claiming that the company somehow rigged voting machines to help Joe Biden steal the election from then-President Trump.
Numerous post-election lawsuits and audits confirmed that Biden’s win was legitimate.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis warned Fox “I need people to tell me the truth.”
“And, by the way, omission is a lie,” he said. Last week, Davis ruled that Dominion had already proved the contested statements’ falsity and that jury won’t have to weigh their validity; instead, the judge will instruct them that the statements are false.
The comments Wednesday follow a bombshell disclosure to Davis on Tuesday about Rupert Murdoch’s particular role as executive chairman of Fox News — in addition to chair of its parent company Fox Corp. — that left the judge questioning whether he could have made earlier judicial decisions differently.
Davis on Tuesday said Fox lawyers previously had “represented to him more than once” that Murdoch…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply