A new Dominion filing reveals messages among Rupert Murdoch, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and more.After a mob stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, Rupert Murdoch wondered whether Fox News was to blame.
Hannity's support for Trump, on one level, was understandable. The Fox News audience were fervent supporters of Trump. After Trump lost the election to now-President Joe Biden, he denied the results and tasked members of his legal team with overturning them. Fox News and its parent company Fox Corporation have defended themselves, arguing it fairly reported on a massive news story: That the sitting president of the United States was making claims of widespread voter fraud."Dominion's motion for summary judgment takes an extreme and unsupported view of defamation law and rests on an accounting of the facts that has no basis in the record," a Fox News spokesperson told Insider.
Tucker Carlson said Powell was"lying" and called her a"fucking bitch." Laura Ingraham said in a group text with Carlson and Hannity that Powell was"a bit nuts." Hannity said he"did not believe it for one second" when he heard Powell's claims.
After hearing host Lou Dobbs run false information about election fraud, one producer responded,"Does anyone do a fucking simple google search or read emails?" "Serious $$ with serious distribution could be a real problem. Imho they need to address but wtf do I know," Hannity wrote in a text message, referring to Newsmax.
That email, Dominion's lawyers write, came from an unnamed author who claimed to be a beheaded ghost who talks to the wind. Carlson, too, tried and failed to"thread his own needle" where he'd denounce Powell but try to demonstrate he supported Trump, according to Dominion.