A single sentence in Fox News lawsuit portends campaign violations
Buried deep in the latest 197-page filing by Dominion Voting Systems in its mammoth $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News for suggesting that the 2020 presidential election was stolen with help from rigged Dominion voting machines is one very explosive sentence:
“During Trump’s campaign, Rupert (Murdoch) provided Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, with Fox confidential information about Biden’s ads, along with debate strategy (providing Kushner a preview of Biden’s ads before they were public).”
The assertion that Rupert Murdoch leaked non-public Biden campaign ads and debate strategy to the Trump campaign is not mentioned again, mainly because it lacks relevance to the rest of the lawsuit. Dominion’s lawyers were making an extraneous reference to some of Murdoch’s deposition in the case.
But unimportant it is not. If this off-the-cuff allegation is true, it would mean that: (1) Murdoch made an excessive in-kind contribution to the Trump campaign in violation of contribution limits; (2) the in-kind contribution came from an illegal corporate source; (3) the in-kind contribution was never reported, as required under the campaign finance law; and (4) Murdoch betrayed the business arrangement between the Biden campaign and Fox — further tainting the image of Fox as an unreliable and flagrantly partisan news outlet.
Suddenly, the case is no longer just about lying and defamation. It is now also about serious violations of campaign finance law and an egregious ethical betrayal of the business model.
On the campaign finance side of this allegation, there is a whole slew of campaign finance law violations if the allegations are true.
First, there are strict limits on contributions to federal candidates. Campaign contributions to candidates in the 2020 federal elections were capped at $2,800 per election. Contributions are defined as cash donations and also include “in-kind contributions” — the provision of any goods or services for campaign purposes without charge or at a charge that is less than the usual and customary charge for such goods and services.
The Federal Election Commission, which interprets and enforces the campaign finance law, has a long and diverse list of what constitutes goods and services as in-kind campaign contributions — ranging from handing over opposition research, providing election materials and offering consulting services, to providing non-public information and research central to bolstering a campaign. The provision to the Trump campaign of in-kind contributions in the form of access to confidential Biden campaign ads and debate strategy would likely have exceeded the contribution limit.
Second, even in-kind contributions are subject to reporting and disclosure. Neither Murdoch nor the Trump campaign ever reported the in-kind contributions from Fox — at least, not until Murdoch’s deposition in the Dominion defamation lawsuit.
Third, and most important, campaign contributions from corporations are prohibited in federal elections. The confidential Biden campaign ads would have been the property of the Fox Corp., not the personal property of its chairman, which would make this an in-kind contribution from an illegal source.
Then, of course, there are the ethical obligations of a CEO to honor business agreements and contracts and not to behave in a manner contrary to the best interests of the business enterprise and its stakeholders. If Murdoch broke the business arrangement between Biden and Fox by turning over Biden’s confidential campaign ads to the Trump campaign, he would have violated both of these tenets of proper business practice. Not only would Murdoch have broken the business arrangement with the Biden campaign, but the resulting scandal might further damage the credibility and business acumen of Fox, harming investors in the company.
In fact, the rest of Dominion’s defamation lawsuit against Fox alleges that Murdoch privately trashed Trump’s election fraud claims, but he did nothing to stop the stories from being repeated over and over on the air.
This Dominion defamation lawsuit against Fox keeps getting bigger and bigger. So far, we have allegations of lying, defamation, political influence peddling, campaign finance violations, and transgressions against basic business ethics.
My, what one off-the-cuff sentence can do!
Unfortunately, campaign finance transgressions are not part of the Dominion lawsuit and will not be addressed in this court case. If Murdoch did indeed reveal improper political influence peddling and campaign finance violations in his deposition — and there is little reason to suggest otherwise — that is a clarion call for an independent FEC enforcement action.