NEW YORK (AP) — Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch has said under oath that he believes the 2020 presidential election was free, fair and not stolen, according to court documents released Tuesday in a Voting Machine Company Defamation Suit on foxnews‘ coverage of the former president donald trumpFalse claims of voter fraud.
In January interrogation under oath by attorneys for Dominion Voting Systems, Murdoch was asked: “Do you think the 2020 presidential election was free and fair?”
“Yes,” he replied, according to a transcript.
“The election was not stolen,” he later said.
The transcript and other material released Tuesday expand on previous revelations that paint a portrait of behind-the-scenes doubt, or outright rejection, of Trump’s voter fraud claims, even as the network gave them airtime. In excerpts from Murdoch’s interrogation published earlier, he acknowledged that it did not stop several Fox News commentators from promoting unsubstantiated claims by Trump allies that the election was stolen, despite the fact that it could have.
He also acknowledged that some of the network’s hosts – Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro and Sean Hannity — sometimes backed up false claims.
Dominion is suing Fox News for $1.6 billion, saying the network crippled the company’s business by airing false claims by Trump’s lawyers that Dominion had shifted votes in the 2020 election.
Fox says Dominion is fabricating its claims of lost business and has selected and misrepresented comments from Fox hosts and leaders to paint a picture of a company that neglected the truth to keep its audience.
“Dominion has been caught red-handed using further distortions and misinformation in its public relations campaign to smear Fox News and trample free speech and press freedom,” the company said in a statement Tuesday, complaining that “misrepresenting and even misattributing quotes to the highest levels of our company is truly beyond the pale.”
Federal and state election officialscomprehensive reviews on the battlefield state and trump attorney general found no widespread fraud which could have changed the result of the 2020 elections. They also did not uncover any credible evidence that the vote was tainted. Trump’s fraud allegations They have also been roundly rejected by dozens of courtseven by the judges he had appointed.
Under questioning, Murdoch said he doubted any massive fraud had occurred and said the then-attorney general William Barr Statement on December 1, 2020, that there was no significant voter fraud “just shut it down for me.”
Murdoch even worried about Trump, telling a friend in an email that the commander in chief “apparently wasn’t sleeping and bouncing off the walls.”
“The real danger is what he could do as president,” Murdoch added in the message, as he recalled when questioned.
Still, Murdoch defended his network’s coverage of Trump’s fraud claims, even as he privately regretted them.
“This was great news,” Murdoch said. “The president of the United States was making wild claims, but that’s news.”
He acknowledged that he has prevented certain guests from appearing on Fox News and even intervened with on-air talent. He excluded Trump adviser Steve Bannon, he admitted, because “I just see him as a fringe character.” Murdoch pointedly said that he did not watch Dobbs’ show on Fox Business News and resisted Trump’s pleas to move Dobbs to the most-watched major news channel.
Some of the network’s biggest stars have also privately expressed their disbelief at the claims made by Trump allies, but aired the claims anyway. “Sydney Powell is lying,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson said in a text message to a producer, referring to one of the lawyers pushing Trump’s claims. Host Laura Ingraham texted Carlson that Powell is “a complete nutcase.”
Murdoch called her a “crazy wannabe lawyer” in another email to a friend, she told Dominion’s lawyers.
The latest material in the Dominion case came as another voting technology company that is suing Fox News trained a new approach on Murdoch and Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch, saying they played a leading role in the transmission. false claims that the company’s technology helped “steal” the 2020 presidential election from Trump.
The company, Smartmatic, said in a filing Monday that the Murdochs, as top officials at the network’s corporate parent, “were front and center in the decision to cover and facilitate the disinformation campaign published by Fox News after the 2020 US elections.
Fox News and Fox Corp. did not immediately comment on Smartmatic’s claims, which came after a New York appeals court dismissed Fox Corp. from the lawsuit, but let it proceed against the news network, as well as Bartiromo, Pirro and Dobbs. Smartmatic’s new filing reaffirms the claims against Fox Corp., supporting them with the new allegations against its top leaders, the Murdochs.
As in the Dominion case, Fox News responded to Smartmatic’s lawsuit by saying that it was merely reporting on newsworthy claims made by the president and his lawyers. The network notes that its hosts sometimes asked lawyers for evidence to back up their claims, which was never provided.
After Smartmatic demanded a retractionFox News published an interview with an election technology expert who denied the allegations of fraud.
Like Dominion, Smartmatic contends that Fox News got behind the false narrative of voter fraud to win back pro-Trump viewers who turned to rival conservative news outlets after Fox, correctly, declared on election night that Biden had won Arizona.
Associated Press writers Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta; Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix; Gary Fields in Washington, DC; and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
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