10 things you might have missed from the Dominion filings
Written by Kayla Gogarty, Courtney Hagle, Craig Harrington & Julie Tulbert
Published
In March 2021, Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox for the false claims the network, its hosts, and its guests repeatedly pushed after the 2020 presidential election. On March 7, hundreds of exhibits from the filings were released. The release of these exhibits comes on the heels of the public releases of Dominion's February 16 summary judgment motion and Dominion’s February 27 brief in opposition of Fox’s motion for a summary judgment.
Here are a few highlights of what you might have missed:
- A producer for Tucker Carlson Tonight noted that Tucker “always adlibs in wrong information” on his show.
- Senior Executive Vice President Irena Briganti called Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich “not a team player” and said she had “serious nerve” for fact-checking a lie from then-President Donald Trump, claiming, “If this gets picked up, viewers are going to be further disgusted.”
- Carlson and Fox prime-time host Laura Ingraham privately complained about network correspondent Byran Llenas publicly saying that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 elections. Carlson claimed Llenas apologized to him personally for his accurate reporting.
- Fox’s prime-time talent — Carlson, Ingraham, and Sean Hannity — relentlessly bashed the network’s news-side reporters. Hannity claimed that “they hate, hate, hate all 3 of us,” Carlson called them “pathetic” and “so angry,” and Ingraham said, “They aren’t smart.” Hannity noted that “they destroyed a brand that took 25 years to build and the damage is incalculable.”
- In increasingly frustrated correspondence about Trump in the days leading up to the January 6 insurrection, Carlson excitedly proclaimed, “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights," adding, "I hate him passionately.”
- During his deposition, Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch discussed having conversations with former Trump adviser Jared Kushner about the Trump campaign’s advertisements: “I was trying to help Mr. Kushner. He's a friend of mine”
- Fox executive Ron Mitchell, Carlson, and Carlson’s executive producer Justin Wells messaged each other throughout the infamous Four Seasons Landscaping press conference, mocking Trump ally Rudy Guiliani and his election lies.
- In his deposition, Rupert Murdoch claims that Newsmax Media CEO Christopher Ruddy “has been begging everybody, including me, for money.”
- When asked what he meant when he said that Fox would help “in any way” it can with the Georgia runoff election, Rupert Murdoch said, “I just give exposure to the Republican candidate.”
- The weekend after the 2020 presidential election, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott, Rupert Murdoch, and Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch decided “news hours” are not to book prominent Democrats because audiences don’t want to see them.