DENVER — Fox News’ nearly $800 million settlement of a voting-machine company’s defamation lawsuit marks the first milestone in a larger legal strategy designed to combat the false claims and conspiracy theories about elections that have rippled through the United States for nearly three years.
— Rachel Goodman, Protect Democracy, representing Georgia election workers in libel claims against election conspiracists Lawyers involved in the effort describe it as an attempt to strike back against those whose lies about fraud in that election helped inspire the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and continue to circulate in conservative circles.
The lawsuit against Fox News and its parent company by Dominion Voting Systems was one of the first defamation claims filed after Trump and his allies spent weeks falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen. One of the initial conspiracy theories they floated was that the Denver-based voting-machine company was part of an international cabal that threw the election to Biden.
Fox Corp., the parent of Fox News, and News Corp, parent of MarketWatch publisher Dow Jones, share common ownership.There is no requirement in the settlement that Fox admit airing inaccurate information. The network itself made a brief reference to “the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false,” but made no apologies or other marks of contrition in its statement.
Kathy Boockvar, Pennsylvania’s former top voting official, in an interview hours after the settlement, recalled crying during her deposition in the Dominion-Fox case when she recounted the death threats she received after the 2020 election. She said those threats spiked after Fox aired segments amplifying false accusations of mass fraud.
“For us, it was never really about Fox, per se. It was about telling the truth and the media telling the truth,” Poulos told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday. “And I think that what was important for us, is for people to be held to account for when they recklessly and knowingly tell lies that have such devastating consequences.”
Still, Fox has continued to air misleading segments about the 2020 election and the threat to democracy posed by election lies, even as the Dominion case hurtled towards its conclusion. Last month, Carlson aired a segment playing down the severity of the Jan. 6 attack, drawing condemnation even from some Republican senators.
When will election officials sue the maker of the 2000 mules documentary for spreading misinformation? Or perhaps……is it factual?
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