Rupert Murdoch has described allegations that the 2020 US election was stolen from Donald Trump as “destructive” and “insane” even as the Fox News channel continues to air the claim, according to the filing of a defamation lawsuit against the network.
The billionaire media mogul, who owns Fox, repeatedly emailed Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott in the chaotic weeks and months after the election, as some US states took days to count votes and Trump said the process was kidnapped, according to the filing.
The message is part of a court filing by voting technology group Dominion asking a Delaware judge to rule on a $1.6bn defamation lawsuit brought against Fox for defamation in March 2021.
In recent months, the company has removed Murdoch as well as several central figures in the network’s coverage of the election, where several Trump allies, including lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, have claimed that voting machines made by Dominion have been hijacked and that the company has been working. for Hugo Chávez, the last Venezuelan leader.
On November 19, 2020, during a press conference given by Giuliani and Powell in which they said there was “mass fraud” in the election, Murdoch wrote: “Terrible things destroy everyone, I’m afraid,” according to a message cited in the file . Scott replied: “yes Sean [Hannity] and even [Jeanine] Pirro agreed,” the two Fox primetime hosts said.
In a separate email, with the subject line “Watch Giuliani!” Murdoch wrote: “Absolutely insane. And devastating.”
In court filings Thursday, Dominion’s lawyers described Fox News as scrambling to cover the election while revealing internal concerns that its far-right audience was shrinking after Trump lost the vote.
Fox News said in a statement responding to the filing: “There has been a lot of noise and confusion caused by Dominion and its opportunistic private equity owners, but the heart of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v Sullivan.
Fox added that it could not file a full response with the court until February 27.
The 192-page motion filed by Dominion, which has been partially redacted, contains multiple instances of the 91-year-old Murdoch voicing concerns about Fox’s coverage of the election, as well as numerous other executives, producers and presenters.
“It’s very difficult to claim fault anywhere”, Murdoch wrote to Scott on November 6, as votes were still being counted but the results looked good for Biden. “If Trump is a sore loser, we should be watching Sean [Hannity] especially and others don’t sound the same.”
On November 8, the day after Fox and others called the election for Biden, Murdoch emailed Scott: “Get creamed by CNN! We think our audience doesn’t want to watch it.
After Fox News continued to air allegations of election fraud, star producer Laura Ingraham sent a text to Fox executives: “This dominance of dominance is going to give you a brazen aneurysm,” according to the filing.
The file quoted fellow Fox host Tucker Carlson as telling Ingraham on November 18: “Sidney Powell lied. I caught him. It’s crazy.” To which Ingraham replied: “Sidney is a total nutcase.”
On January 5, 2021, Murdoch told Scott, “It is recommended that our prime time three” – a reference to Hannity, Carlson and Ingraham – “must independently or together say something like ‘the election is over and Joe Biden won'”, and the statement “will goes a long way to ending the Trump myth that the election [was] stolen”.
The day after the email, Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol in Washington and tried to stop the official election results from being certified.
At some point after the deadly riot, Murdoch told Scott: “Everything is fine with Sean [Hannity] to tell him that he despaired of Trump, but what did he tell the audience?” court filings said.
Scott forwarded the email to another Fox executive, stating: “I told Rupert that personally everything is there – we have to be careful about using the show and distracting the audience, but he knows how to navigate.”
Legal experts say the Dominions face an uphill battle, given strong U.S. constitutional protections for speech on public issues. A judge has scheduled a jury trial for later this year.
Dominion has filed several defamation lawsuits after the 2020 election, alleging that its business was severely damaged by false claims of election fraud. Other defendants include Powell, Giuliani and conservative news outlets OAN and Newsmax.
Another voting machine manufacturer, Smartmatic, has filed a similar lawsuit.