One week ago Fox News settled a $1.6 billion dollar defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for 3/4 of a billion dollars. Fox News had falsely reported that Dominion’s voting machines were used in a conspiracy to flip votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.
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The settlement was the largest of its kind in history. It was a clear victory for Dominion, whose pre-trial discovery uncovered and made public unambiguous evidence of Fox News executives and hosts blatantly lying on the air, while acknowledging the truth – that there was no evidence of any election fraud – to one another in private, internal communications.
RELATED: The Fox News 3/4 Billion Dollar Dominion Defamation Settlement is Also a Judgment Against Trump
Fox News is already suffering the consequences of their dishonesty. The network had already fired hosts Lou Dobbs and Dan Bongino due to the Dominion fallout. And there are likely more pink slips to be distributed in the coming weeks and months as Fox tries to slow-roll their efforts to punish scapegoats for the offenses that were part and parcel of Fox’s editorial depravity. But none will be more painful for Fox than their announcement that Tucker Carlson was terminated, and that last Friday was his last show.
SEE THIS: A Post-Mortem on Tucker Carlson Following His Unusually Abrupt Departure From Fox News
However, if Fox News thought that these concessions would put an end to their legal troubles, they were sorely mistaken. On the heels of the settled Dominion case, Fox will now have to confront essentially the same allegations of defamation from another voting technology company, Smartmatic.
Fox News had aired numerous false reports that Smartmatic was founded in Venezuela to steal elections for Hugo Chavez. They further lied that Smartmatic’s software flipped votes from Trump to Biden and that it transmitted ballots to foreign countries where they would be counted by operatives beholden to Biden and Democrats. It’s that sort of crackpot conspiracy theorizing that this case a slam dunk for Smartmatic. And there is already news on that front that is going to ruin Fox’s day…
“Fox News has agreed to give voting technology company Smartmatic additional documents about Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch and other senior corporate executives. Smartmatic is suing the right-wing network for $2.7 billion over its airing of 2020 election lies.
“The agreement was announced Wednesday at a court hearing in Manhattan. New York Supreme Court Judge David Cohen scheduled the hearing after Smartmatic raised concerns about whether Fox was complying with its pretrial obligations to turn over relevant evidence.”
Smartmatic lawyers told the judge that they “noticed obvious gaps” among the records that Fox News had already provided during the discovery process. They had good reason to suspect that Fox was being less than honest with their required document production. Fox did the same thing in the Dominion case, for which they were reprimanded by that judge in blunt terms…
“The judge presiding over [the Dominion] defamation case against Fox News admonished its attorneys Wednesday for potentially withholding evidence and said he is inclined to order an independent review by a special master that could lead to sanctions.” […]
“The judge expressed anger and frustration during a pretrial hearing after learning that Fox only recently turned over recordings of Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo [and] had withheld critical information about the role company founder Rupert Murdoch, who is chairman of Fox Corp., played at Fox News. […] Fox also did not reveal the recordings made by [Abby Grossberg] a former producer for Bartiromo.”
It’s clear that Fox News cannot be trusted to follow the law and meet their obligations required by it. Smartmatic will need to continue being vigilant and hold Fox accountable when they attempt to deceive the court. As will other plaintiffs who are lining up to sue Fox, including Abby Grossberg, the former Fox News producer for Tucker Carlson and Maria Bartiromo who claims that she was coerced to falsify testimony in the Dominion case; and Fox Corp shareholders, who are exploring legal options to hold Fox News directors and executives accountable for losses due to their malfeasance.
At this point, the only people who trust Fox are their glassy-eyed viewers, who believe everything they see on the network, even after learning that they’ve been lied to. Although even some of them are losing faith now that Fox has fired their white nationalist prophet, Tucker Carlson.
RELATED: IT’S A CULT: Most Fox News Viewers Are Still Loyal After Dominion Lawsuit Discloses Their Lies
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