Judge allows voting tech company’s $4B defamation lawsuit against Fox News to move forward

A Delaware judge has determined Fox News’ coverage of the 2020 election may have been misleading and is allowing a defamation lawsuit against the conservative-leaning network to move forward, CNN reports.

Judge Eric Davis’ ruling will allow Dominion Voting Systems to gather evidence for the case, including extensive communications within Fox News and even interviewing high profile figures at the network. “At this stage, the court must assume Dominion’s claims about Fox News are true,” CNN reports.

Although Dominion tried to direct Fox News to data that disproved voter fraud conspiracy theories that were being disseminated by Donald Trump and his allies, “Fox and its news personnel continued to report Dominion purported connection to the election fraud claims without also reporting on Dominion’s emails,” the judge wrote.

“Given that Fox apparently refused to report contrary evidence, including evidence from the Department of Justice, the Complaint’s allegations support the reasonable inference that Fox intended to keep Dominion’s side of the story out of the narrative,” he continued, rejecting Fox News claim that it’s alleged propping up of Trump voter fraud conspiracy theories fell under the umbrella of journalism.

Of course, Fox disagrees.

“As we have maintained, FOX News, along with every single news organization across the country, vigorously covered the breaking news surrounding the unprecedented 2020 election, providing full context of every story with in-depth reporting and clear-cut analysis,” the network said in a statement. “We remain committed to defending against this baseless lawsuit and its all-out assault on the First Amendment.”

Dominion’s lawsuit claims Fox News personalities such as Tucker Carlson, Jeanine Pirro, Sean Hannity and guests Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Mike Lindell lied about fraud in the 2020 election that hurt Dominion’s business.

Sky Palma

Before launching DeadState back in 2012, Sky Palma has been blogging about politics, social issues and religion for over a decade. He lives in Los Angeles and also enjoys Brazilian jiu jitsu, chess, music and art.