Fox CEO to be deposed on election claims

Murdoch will be most senior exec questioned in suit concerning voting machines

Lachlan Murdoch, CEO of Fox Corp., is expected to be deposed today as part of a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News for amplifying claims that rigged machines from Dominion Voting Systems were responsible for Donald Trump’s defeat in 2020.

Murdoch will be the most senior corporate figure within the Fox media empire to face questions under oath in the case so far. And his appearance before Dominion’s lawyers is a sign of how unexpectedly far and fast the lawsuit has progressed in recent weeks — and how contentious it has become.

Fox and Dominion have gone back and forth in Delaware state court since the summer in an escalating dispute over witnesses, evidence and testimony. The arguments point to the high stakes of the case, which will render a judgment on whether the most powerful conservative media outlet in the country intentionally misled its audience and helped seed one of the most pervasive lies in American politics.

Although the law leans in the media’s favor in defamation cases, Dominion has what independent observers have said is an unusually strong case. Day after day, Fox hosts and guests repeated claims about Dominion’s ties to communist regimes and farfetched theories about how its software enabled enemies of the former president to steal his votes.

“This is a very different kind of case,” said David Logan, dean of the Roger Williams School of Law, who has argued in favor of loosening some libel laws. “Rarely do cases turn on a weekslong pattern of inflammatory, provably false, but also oddly inconsistent statements.”

Dominion, in its quest to obtain the private communications of as many low-, mid- and high-level Fox personnel as possible, hopes to prove that people inside the network knew they were disseminating what it says are lies. Fox is hoping to refute that by showing how its hosts pressed Trump allies for evidence they never produced and that Dominion machines were vulnerable to hacking, even if no hacking took place.

The judge, Eric Davis, has ruled in most instances in Dominion’s favor, allowing the voting company to expand the pool of potential evidence it can present to a jury to include text messages from the personal phones of Fox employees and the employment contracts of star hosts such as Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, along with those of Suzanne Scott, CEO of Fox News Media, and her top corporate managers.

Dominion has conducted dozens of depositions with current and former network personalities, producers, business managers and executives. The people questioned come from the rungs of middle management at Fox News headquarters in Manhattan to the corner office in Century City, Los Angeles, where Murdoch oversees Fox Corp. and its sprawling enterprise of conservative media outlets.

The fight over depositions has intensified in recent weeks as lawyers for the two companies sparred over whether Hannity and another pro-Trump host, Jeanine Pirro, should have to sit for a second round of questioning about messages that Dominion obtained from their phones as part of the discovery process. Fox lawyers have argued that the hosts should not be compelled to testify again, citing the legal protections that journalists have against being forced to reveal confidential sources.

The judge ruled that Dominion’s lawyers could question both Hannity and Pirro again but limited the scope of what they could ask. Pirro’s second deposition was late last month; Hannity’s has yet to be scheduled.

Fox News has a history of settling sensitive lawsuits before they reach a jury. In the past several years alone, it has paid tens of millions of dollars in claims: to women who reported sexual harassment by its former CEO, Roger Ailes, and by prominent hosts including Bill O’Reilly; as well as to the family of Seth Rich, a former Democratic Party staff member who was killed in a robbery that some conservatives tried to link to an anti-Clinton conspiracy theory.

But a settlement with Dominion appears to be a remote possibility at this point. Fox has said that the broad protections provided to the media under the First Amendment shield it from liability. The network says it was merely reporting on Trump’s accusations, which are protected speech even if the president is lying. Dominion’s complaint outlines examples in which Fox hosts did more than just report those false claims, they endorsed them.

“This does not appear to be a case that’s going to settle — but anything can happen,” said Dan K. Webb, a noted trial lawyer who is representing Fox in the dispute. “There are some very fundamental First Amendment issues here, and those haven’t changed.”

In a statement, Dominion said the company was confident its case would show that Fox knew it was spreading lies “from the highest levels down.”

“Instead of acting responsibly and showing remorse, Fox instead has doubled down,” the statement said. “We’re focused on holding Fox accountable and are confident the truth will ultimately prevail.”

The judge has set a trial date for April. A separate defamation suit against Fox by the voting company Smartmatic is not scheduled to be ready for trial until the summer of 2024.