Murdoch testimony that ’20 race was fair released
NEW YORK — Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said under oath that he believes the 2020 presidential election was free, fair and not stolen, according to court filings released Tuesday in a voting machine company’s defamation lawsuit over Fox News’ coverage of former President Donald Trump’s election fraud claims.
The transcript and other material released Tuesday expand on earlier disclosures that paint a portrait of behind-the-scenes doubt — or outright dismissals — of Trump’s voting fraud claims, even as the network gave them airtime.
Murdoch acknowledged that some of the network’s hosts — Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro and Sean Hannity — at times endorsed the claims.
Dominion is suing Fox News for $1.6 billion, claiming the network crippled the company’s business by broadcasting claims from Trump’s lawyers that Dominion changed votes in the 2020 election.
Fox claims Dominion is inventing its claims of lost business and has cherry-picked and misrepresented remarks by Fox hosts and leaders to paint a picture of a company that threw truth aside to keep its audience.
“Dominion has been caught red-handed using more distortions and misinformation in their PR [public relations] campaign to smear Fox News and trample on free speech and freedom of the press,” the company said in a statement Tuesday.
Federal and state election officials, exhaustive reviews in battleground states and Trump’s attorney general found no widespread fraud that could have changed the outcome of the 2020 election. Nor did they uncover any credible evidence that the vote was tainted.
Under questioning, Murdoch said then-Attorney General William Barr’s Dec. 1, 2020, statement that there was no significant voter fraud “just closed it for me.”
“The real danger is what he might do as president,” Murdoch told a friend in an email, as he recalled under questioning.
Still, Murdoch defended his network’s coverage of Trump’s claims of fraud, even as he privately bemoaned them.
“This was big news,” Murdoch said. “The president of the United States was making wild claims, but that is news.”
He acknowledged he has kept certain guests from appearing on Fox News and even intervened with on-air talent. He barred Trump adviser Steve Bannon, he admitted, because “I just see him as a fringe character.”
Murdoch pointedly said he did not watch Dobbs’ show on Fox Business News and resisted entreaties from Trump to move Dobbs to the more widely viewed main news channel.
Some of the network’s biggest stars also privately expressed disbelief in the claims made by Trump allies, but aired the claims anyway.
The latest material in the Dominion case came as another voting-technology company that is suing Fox News trained new focus on Murdoch and Fox Corp.
Smartmatic said in a filing Monday that the Murdochs, as the ultimate authorities 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 U.S. election.”
Fox News and Fox Corp. didn’t 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 reasserts claims against Fox Corp., supporting them with the new allegations against its top leaders, the Murdochs.
After Smartmatic demanded a retraction, Fox News ran an interview with an election technology expert who shot down the fraud allegations.