Fox News host Sean Hannity is scheduled for a deposition this coming Wednesday amid a sweeping defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems against the network.
He’s not alone among Fox personnel sitting for questioning by Dominion’s legal team. Dominion Voting Systems, which is responsible for election-related equipment, was — and still is — the subject of numerous, pro-Trump conspiracy theories about what supposedly happened during the 2020 presidential election. At one point, Trump claimed on Twitter that Dominion somehow deleted 2.7 million of his votes from around the country. No real-world evidence remotely supports that idea or any other notion about the involvement of Dominion Voting Systems in supposed systematic fraud that, in reality, was non-existent. No court ever accepted the idea that Biden’s win in a single state was the result of fraud.
Other individuals among those getting called to answer questions amid the Dominion lawsuit, in which the company is seeing $1.6 billion in damages, include Tucker Carlson, who was scheduled for a Friday deposition, and Lou Dobbs, who was slated for a Tuesday appearance. Dobbs is no longer an active host on Fox after his Fox Business show was cancelled shortly after Smartmatic, another election technology company referenced in pro-Trump conspiracy theories about the 2020 elections, filed its own sweeping defamation lawsuit implicating Dobbs and Fox.
Amid the ongoing Dominion case, hosts Jeanine Pirro and Steve Doocy alongside certain high-ranking producers at the network were also recently questioned, as were Dana Perino, Shepard Smith, and Chris Stirewalt. Perino is still with the network, but Smith and Stirewalt now work elsewhere. Stirewalt worked on the Fox team that made an infamous, post-election call of Arizona for Biden. Sources for The New York Times, who went unidentified in the report, indicated an expectation that Fox News Media chief Suzanne Scott “could be” among those getting questioned next, as could Fox News President Jay Wallace and the Murdochs (specifically Lachlan and Rupert).
The case is slated to go to trial early next year, and at this stage, no signs of an imminent settlement have emerged. In private, it’s no different. “There have been no moves from either side to discuss a possible settlement, people with knowledge of the case have said,” the Times reports. It was comparatively recently, in June, when Dominion received court approval for adding Fox Corporation, which is the parent company of Fox News and features the Murdochs at the helm of its leadership structure, as a defendant in the case. The Fox team is claiming freedom of the press as an attempted defense for its role in deceiving the public about Dominion’s conduct.
As outlined by the Times, Dominion is working to meet a standard that requires proving a “reckless disregard for the truth” at Fox, which at least two sets of circumstances might reflect: broadcasting knowingly false claims or acting with recklessness to the point of missing the truth. In recent months, Fox personnel were required to produce months of emails and text communications as Dominion digs into the media organization’s operations and a trial looms.
Image: Gage Skidmore/ Creative Commons
