Dominion Files Suit against Fox News, Smartmatic Piles On

[postman1782]

So, how bad is it for Fox News? So bad they are looking to axe 3 of their more popular anchors/hosts. Not sure how true any of this is but Fox is known for getting rid of anchors when it suits them.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainm...1ebea939&ei=24



And yet they still won't get rid of the biggest peddler of them all of The Big Lie on that network, Carlson.

But if that is true, they aren't firing their worst host, Tucker Carlson. He openly pushed these lies as well, along with literally Nazi propaganda.

[gondrin]

But if that is true, they aren't firing their worst host, Tucker Carlson. He openly pushed these lies as well, along with literally Nazi propaganda.

I figure the CEO and at least one host will get canned. They most definitely will not can Carlson because he is one of the highest ratings people on that network.

[Poopymonster]

I figure the CEO and at least one host will get canned. They most definitely will not can Carlson because he is one of the highest ratings people on that network.

"See? We did something. We fired 3 people who were saying this thing we won't say out loud as wrong because it'll cost us viewers but was admitted to in court!"
What about the lead shitflinger who screeched it the most?
"We did something, not the right thing."

[Breccia]

Bit of a recap piece, appropriate for a Friday I suppose.

Legal experts say Fox News on shaky legal ground in Dominion lawsuit

A slew of internal communications and depositions taken by Dominion as part of its discovery process has left many legal experts warning that Fox could be on shaky legal footing.

Dominion argues the vignettes contained in its court filings demonstrate how top hosts and executives at Fox knew the claims being pushed by Trump’s associates about Dominion were false but aired them anyway.

“One just doesn’t see cases like this in defamation,” said Catherine Ross, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University who specializes in First Amendment issues.

“Fox does not appear to have any plausible defense, particularly in light of what Dominion uncovered in discovery of real-time knowledge of falsity,” she said.

Dominion has deposed top talent at Fox and senior executives, including Rupert Murdoch, the owner and co-chairman of Fox Corp.

Depositions and texts show many hosts and executives had severe doubts about the claims made by Trump, but that they were also worried about how their audience would react to fact checks of those claims.

Outside observers say the internal communications revealed through the discovery process, however, are a real problem for Fox.

“You can cover this without giving a platform to people like Sidney Powell because when you invite her on her show, you’re responsible for her lies if you don’t correct them in real time,” Ross said. “There are many, many ways of framing and covering that do not involve actually giving a platform or labeling something as actual news or a fact.”

Neither Dominion nor Fox have signaled any public interest in a settlement. That’s unusual given the nature of the case.

“Most of these kinds of cases ultimately settle, mainly because the media defendants don’t want to take the risk in the bad publicity,” said Carl Tobais, the chair in the law at the University of Richmond.

“And the plaintiffs may be afraid they won’t win anything just because of the really high standard that the Supreme Court set in the New York Times v. Sullivan decision,” Tobais said. “It does seem in this particular case that Dominion may be making a pretty strong argument, so it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.”

Lee Levine, a private First Amendment attorney who has represented a number of major media companies, in an appearance on CNN this week said the remarks are newsworthy, but do not necessarily cement Dominion’s case.

“From a legal perspective, it is certainly helpful to Dominion’s case, but it is not a smoking gun,” he said.

One thing most media and legal observers agree on is that the case is shining a spotlight on how the world’s largest news organizations cover dubious claims being promoted by prominent people and how failure to vet them can lead to drastic consequences.

“When you know that something is false or … if you are reckless in taking the steps to make sure that it is true and accurate then you may be held accountable,” said Joseph Russomanno, a journalism professor and expert in the First Amendment and media law at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School. “What it will do is drive home that point that being careless or frivolous about facts and the truth will not stand.”

The WSJ had a similar piece.

I should note that quote above about losing being bad press. For the people we're talking about, the FOX News viewers even FOX News said were stupid, crazy, and violent, settling is bad press.

It is also worth noting the discussion above (and in trial) does touch on the idea of "this would stop the news from reporting the news, and that would be bad". That argument is irrelevant here. FOX News wasn't trying to be the first pushing a headline, for example. This was something they knew was stupid and crazy, but pushed it anyway, for weeks, until it became violent. FOX News has not yet claimed "we had to keep pushing it, or people would get hurt when we changed our story" so they weren't afraid of that. It was they money. They were pushing the lie, to get money.

That's malicious.

FOX News is also not helping their case when they say "all media lies" no really, Hannity brought out KellyAnne Conway to say that, wanna see the video?

...yeah neither did I.

Or there's

If Rupert Murdoch honestly believes that the Presidential Election of 2020, despite MASSIVE amounts of proof to the contrary, was not Rigged & Stollen, then he & his group of MAGA Hating Globalist RINOS should get out of the News Business as soon as possible, because they are aiding & abetting the DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA with FAKE NEWS. Certain BRAVE & PATRIOTIC FoxNews Hosts, who he scorns and ridicules, got it right. He got it wrong. THEY SHOULD BE ADMIRED & PRAISED, NOT REBUKED & FORSAKEN!!!

Still waiting on that proof, of course.

Newsmax is also concerned, as well they should be, they're next.

If we were not in a Delaware court, small state, liberal, Democratic state, the Biden family's close with everybody there. If we were in federal court, this thing would be on the way to being thrown out. And I think people should just wake up to the the the implications of this case for the First Amendment across for every media, including liberals.

-- CEO of Newsmax, in an interview, on purpose, accusing the courts of being corrupt and rigged against him

He didn't have proof, either.

And we seem to on a daily basis get more and more examples of FOX News, knowing the truth, silencing the people who were saying it. We all know about Hannity and Carlson texting "What the fuck? Please get her fired" about one reporter, but here's another one:

As a reporter and an anchor for Fox News watched Donald Trump supporters gather at a rally in Washington, D.C., after his election defeat in November 2020, they both had some questions.

Many in the crowd, said correspondent Rich Edson, “are picking up on Trump’s unfounded claim that there was widespread electoral interference and that the election was stolen — no proof of that.”

“What do these folks want?” wondered weekend anchor Leland Vittert. “Is it that they really believe that there’s a chance Trump gets a second term, or are they more just trying to complain that things aren’t fair?”

When Lachlan Murdoch, the head of Fox News’s parent company, learned of this on-air exchange, he was displeased.

“News guys have to be careful how they cover this rally,” Murdoch wrote in a message to Fox News’s CEO, according to a recently revealed trove of internal documents. “The narrative should be this is a huge celebration of the president.” He also complained that Vittert took a “smug and obnoxious” tone in his coverage, capped by a combative interview with a Trump campaign spokesperson.

Vittert got a warning from his supervisor, who “told him to cut it out,” according to company communications. Within five months, he was no longer employed at Fox News.

Followed by:

Five days after Vittert’s bosses upbraided him, Fox News aired a news conference where Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell made unfounded claims about Dominion helping to rig the election against Trump. This time, it was White House correspondent Kristin Fisher’s time to push back.

“That was certainly a colorful news conference from Rudy Giuliani, but it was light on facts,” she told viewers. “So much of what he said was simply not true, or has already been thrown out in court. … The Trump campaign has yet to provide, at least in court, hard evidence of voter fraud and irregularities widespread enough to overturn the outcome of the election.”

According to a Dominion court brief, Fisher got an immediate follow-up call from her boss, Bryan Boughton, who “emphasized that higher-ups at Fox News were also unhappy with it,” and told her to do a better job of “respecting our audience.” Dominion also unearthed a text message in which Fisher talked about being “punished for doing my job.”

In May 2021, about a week after Vittert’s departure, Fisher announced on air that she was leaving Fox.

And there's yet more.

Also in November 2020, Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto cut away from a White House briefing after press secretary Kayleigh McEnany leveled baseless allegations of election fraud. “Unless she has more details to back that up, I can’t in good countenance continue to show you this,” he told viewers. His actions raised red flags at company headquarters, where Raj Shah, an executive with parent company Fox Corp, notified senior company leadership that Cavuto’s conduct presented a “brand threat.”

Dominion’s latest brief revealed at least one instance before 2020 in which Rupert Murdoch, the co-founder of Fox News, had taken issue with the work of one of the network’s journalists. After anchor Shepard Smith accused Trump on air of spreading “lies,” Murdoch emailed Scott and network president Jay Wallace. “Over the top!” he wrote, referring to Smith, adding that someone “[needs] to chat to him” about the remarks. (Smith abruptly left Fox News in 2019.)

That's also four FOX News stories I'm technically quoting, so, +4 more CNN points. Honestly when 2024 election season happens I'm going to have to bookmark some of these posts just to point out "Hey, I'm being fair and balanced here, I've been citing FOX News for a year".

The WaPo article from which these citations came also quotes legal experts saying "FOX News is in trouble". In particular, Murdoch managing what opinions the hosts were allowed to have is, despite KellyAnne Conway's baseless allegations otherwise, not the standard. And it hurts FOX News badly that the organization was being run that way from the top, because they can't blame one or two bad actors.

Dominion doesn't have a slam-dunk, but they do seem to have the vast majority of evidence and motive on their side. And the First Amendment doesn't apply here. They had a lengthy, consistent pattern of lying on the air for money, and Dominion was hardly the only target. They're just the ones ready to kick FOX News in the balls $1.6 billion times.

- - - Updated - - -

(eyeroll)

Always hit refresh before hitting "submit" because you might miss a New Yorker article outlining the dangers of pivoting from Trump.

"Isn't the New Yorker owned by--"

Correct.

It was a slow news week in Washington, at least if you watched Fox News. On Tuesday night, apropos of nothing in particular, two of the network’s marquee prime-time hosts, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, retreated to their safe space, devoting long opening segments to bashing President Biden. Hannity banged on about Biden’s friendship, decades ago, with the long-dead Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, who had been a racist Klan member as a young man before renouncing the group. Carlson opted for a more straightforward hit, arguing that Biden’s age makes him unfit for office. For Fox, these monologues are what you talk about when you don’t have anything else to talk about, like when a comedian runs out of material and starts making jokes about the weather.

Hmm, maybe I should skip forward a bit...

On Wednesday night, Hannity offered a long rant about Hillary Clinton and her e-mails and--

Holy shit, really? Jeez.

on the Wall Street Journal’s report that the Department of Energy now thinks, with low confidence, that covid-19 may in fact have originated in a Chinese lab. This last item, according to Carlson, was both major news and complete vindication—for him. Anyone who did not believe in this theory, Carlson said, was “complicit in the greatest crime in history.”

I mean, yes it would be a great crime indeed to make millions die on purpose, but that "doesn't believe the theory" kind of speaks for itself?

Regardless, found the main topic.

Just as notable was what the Fox hosts did not mention. Donald Trump, for years the hero of their nightly shows and even now the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, was barely acknowledged. Nor was the week’s biggest news concerning Fox itself: the revelations in two extraordinary recent legal filings by Dominion Voting Systems about the cynical lengths to which Carlson, Hannity, and others at Fox went to promote Trump’s false claims that he had won the 2020 election—despite knowing that he had lost. They did so, according to evidence obtained by Dominion during discovery in its $1.6-billion defamation lawsuit against Fox, because Fox’s Trump-loving viewers refused to abandon their defeated President, preferring to go along with his “rigged election” delusions rather than admit his defeat.

Fox has publicly denied the charges and complained in statements that Dominion’s attorneys “cherry-picked” quotes to make their case. But neither those claims nor the fact that Carlson and Hannity did not mention these revelations make them any less revelatory. There comes a point in many a contentious divorce proceeding where the sordid private details of the relationship are aired in public. It appears that we have now reached that point, courtesy of Dominion, in the long, unhappy breakup of the marriage of convenience between Trump and the network

Okay to give FOX News some credit, they BLEAAAAAAARRGH oh man, never want to type that again.

FOX News has told its hosts to not cover the lawsuit, which considering they're the defendant, (a) could be for legal reasons and (b) why would they want to?

Trump’s whining aside, however, it’s notable how Trump continues to dominate the Republican Presidential field—even without extensive coverage by the country’s dominant conservative news source. The crisis that Fox faced in the disastrous aftermath of the 2020 election is the same one that the national Republican Party faces today. Read the Fox e-mails and texts. They show a calculating, morally bereft Republican establishment desperate to escape Trump, fully aware that he is a charlatan and liar and probably crazy, but not sure that it can win without him. Pretending he doesn’t exist is the current strategy. Does anyone really think that will work?

The internet never forgets.

Also, Forbes explains why a settlement is unlikely.

The short answer is, "Dominion has them by what's left of their balls."

[Shadowferal]

[Bakis]

Heheh US media landscape - the baby version of censure.

Lie, push falsehoods, rely on shit journalistic standards, opinons segments thinly disguised as news are all fine.. cos there are differentiating media reports out there for people to acccess.
Not like the US is poralized as f. Of course a huge portion of people using FOX, CNN wehatnot as goto source typically love to get their echo chamber perfection disturbed by actually searching for other reportings.

Worst that can happen to FOX in current climate is that FOX has to pay up a hefty amount for damages caused.
Sit down and do the math on the profitability of their current frame for their journalistic work and if it is profitable or not to change in some way.
I would guess FOX come to the conclusion that it still is much more profitable to avoid any meaningful change and continuing to foster a growth of polarized uneducated masses.

[Breccia]

Following the revelations that FOX News was intentionally selling misinformation, a progressive veterans group is proposing that FOX News be kicked off military bases.

There’s no excuse for allowing anti-American, anti-democracy anti-military disinformation in the barracks, in the chow hall or anywhere our troops serve

"Whoa whoa whoa! That's government censorship!"

It is not. US military bases also don't show pornography. And I'm guessing here, but I'm guessing they don't show home renovation shows or international football. Choosing to show another TV program isn't censoring the one you turned off. It's called "changing the channel" and everyone's done it. If they are proposing stopping people from watching it on their own personal devices when off-duty, that would be a source of concern.

If Chinese state-run media had a channel on American providers, and the military didn't air that on bases, would that be called censorship?

Besides, we want our military to have access to the best intelligence out there. FOX News isn't providing that.

[masterhorus8]

Following the revelations that FOX News was intentionally selling misinformation, a progressive veterans group is proposing that FOX News be kicked off military bases.



"Whoa whoa whoa! That's government censorship!"

It is not. US military bases also don't show pornography. And I'm guessing here, but I'm guessing they don't show home renovation shows or international football. Choosing to show another TV program isn't censoring the one you turned off. It's called "changing the channel" and everyone's done it. If they are proposing stopping people from watching it on their own personal devices when off-duty, that would be a source of concern.

If Chinese state-run media had a channel on American providers, and the military didn't air that on bases, would that be called censorship?

Besides, we want our military to have access to the best intelligence out there. FOX News isn't providing that.

Also, being an active part of the military isn't protected from censorship anyways.

[Breccia]

Once again, it's time for Guess the Speaker!

We are very very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait. I hate him passionately, I blew up at Peter Navarro today in frustration. I actually like Peter. But I can’t handle much more of this.

"That could be anyone...wait, which thread is this?"

Yeah...it's Tucker Carlson.

Carlson’s text were included in a series of exhibits contained in new filings made by Dominion as part of its $1.6 billion lawsuit for defamation against Fox. Dominion has accused Fox of knowingly airing false claims about the company being spun by Trump and his allies.

As part of its new filings on Tuesday, Dominion also alleged Rupert Murdoch, owner and co-chairman of Fox Corp, wrote to Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott that top hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham “went too far” in endorsing former President Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.

Murdoch has, in pervious internal communications and depositions with Dominion’s lawyers acknowledged that Trump’s claims were false.

Naturally, FOX News responded.

Thanks to today’s filings, Dominion has been caught red handed using more distortions and misinformation in their PR campaign to smear FOX News and trample on free speech and freedom of the press. We already know they will say and do anything to try to win this case, but to twist and even misattribute quotes to the highest levels of our company is truly beyond the pale.

"So, wait, Dominion filed false texts?"

No.

"...then what is FOX News saying?"

I think they're saying "We got caught red-handed and we're fucked".

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, I thought we were done.

Still getting mud thrown at us!

Maybe Sean and Laura went too far. All very well for Sean to tell you he was in despair about Trump but what did he tell his viewers?

That is Murdoch, emailing the CEO of FOX News, that he knew for a fact that Hannity was telling FOX News viewers one thing and his colleagues another.

But wait! There's more.

A: Omg I'm so depressed. I can't take this.
A: I want to see massive fraud exposed. Will he [Trump] be able to turn this around?
A: I told my team we are not allowed to say pres elect at all. Not in scripts or in banners on air. Until this moves through the courts.
B:You are our fighter. Enough with the sad ! We need u

That was a conversation between A=Fox News host Maria Bartiromo and B=Steve Bannon, Jan 4th. Now, Bartiromo seems to be expressing the belief that there was, in fact, fraud. As a reminder, there was no evidence of fraud found, and by Jan 4th Trump had lost almost all of the 60 court cases he would eventually lose. As a reminder, that is not defense for defamation. Bartiromo should have known by then the only evidence of fraud was wishful thinking and people her own boss told her were crazy.

To the best of my knowledge, Bartiromo has not taken the stand. FOX News has claimed, in court, under oath, that Bartiromo's emails show that she/FOX News did not act with actual malice. (The response is still "she acted with unreasonable negligence, so fuck off")

Also to the best of my knowledge, no FOX News employee that did take the stand, said under oath they believed the claims were true. Considering the texts and emails we're getting, that was a good move in that it avoided perjury, but it's going to cost their company.

Bartiromo's defiance would continue, it seems. From Nov 21, a conversation between Bartiromo and Tony Fratto, a Dominion employee.

F:I just watched the whole interview with Sidney Powell. It’s sad.

A: Tony. She is pushing on this. Do you want to have dominion ceo on?

F: She is pushing a lot of things and trime [sic] after time they’re proving to be untrue. WSJ editorial board has it right — again today on Georgia handcount.

F: She is trying to smear a company with completely unsubstantiated allegations, and they’re unsubstantiated because they’re untrue. The only relevant evidence is that the machines worked, again, everywhere they’re being used. This woman is harassing employees and they’re getting death threats. That’s why they’re protecting they’re [sic] LinkedIn accounts. This is madness.

I also really like this one:

We are all officially working for an organization that hates us.

That was an until-recently private group chat where Ingraham was talking with Carlson and Hannity, Nov 16th.

No evidence had ever been presented about election fraud that made it to court and survived. It was completely fabricated. Fratto was right: the claims were unsubstantiated because they were false. And FOX News either knew that, or should have in Bartiromo's case, and pushed it hard anyhow. FOX News knew their claims were causing death threats, not that it's the issue in this court case, but they knew and still pushed the theory they knew was false.

Expect more proof that FOX News defamed Dominion, and was a knowing vendor of lies for money, as the case continues.

- - - Updated - - -

Everyone except FOX News is posting more or less the same things about the Dominion lawsuit. Namely, that FOX News is full of backbiting con men who privately admitted Trump was a loathesome liar while on the air telling their viewers that Trump was fighting the good fight.

WaPo, for example, found this exchange about Trump tanking Georgia on purpose while they sat back and watched in horror.

Before some Republicans blamed Trump for the party’s relatively poor showing in 2022, some blamed him for torpedoing its chance to take the Senate after the 2020 election.

In their telling, his quixotic stolen-election crusade overshadowed the decisive runoffs that Georgia was holding the day before Jan. 6, 2021, discouraging GOP voters from turning out by suggesting they couldn’t trust that their votes would be counted. Trump showed little interest in helping out.

New evidence suggests Trump was indeed privately rather unconcerned with helping his party in the races, at least in late December.

In a Dec. 22 email, Lachlan Murdoch relayed Allan’s summary of a conversation with Trump.

“Col says POTUS was dismissive of Georgia race when he saw him on Friday,” Lachlan Murdoch said. “He basically said Republicans shouldn’t vote because it’s all rigged anyway. And if he can’t win no one should.”

“Friday” would have been Dec. 18, about two and a half weeks before the runoffs. Trump did a rally in Georgia on Jan. 4, the day before the runoffs, but he focused extensively on his own election rather than then-Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.). While the evidence isn’t conclusive, there is reason to believe GOP turnout suffered the next day.

In a 2021 interview, Trump said of the runoffs, “They didn’t want to vote, because they knew we got screwed in the presidential election.”

When asked whether he could have pushed harder for people to vote, he acknowledged: “I did say a version of that, but not as strongly as you said, because I was angry with what happened there.”

While a rift between FOX News and Trump is, of course, so gratifying, it's not something you can sue over. In terms of defamation, however, multiple articles pointed out this on-the-stand admission string by Murdoch. We've seen some of it, I'm showing more.

Q: Do you believe that Dominion was engaged in a massive and coordinated effort to steal the 2020 presidential election?

A: No,

Q: Have you ever seen any credible evidence to suggest that Dominion was engaged in a massive and coordinated effort to steal the 2020 presidential election?

A: No.

Q: Have you ever believed that Dominion was engaged in a massive and coordinated effort to steal the 2020 presidential election?

A: No.

Q: You’ve never believed that Dominion was involved in an effort to delegitimize and destroy votes for Donald Trump, correct?

A: I’m open to persuasion; but, no, I’ve never seen it.

Murdoch, of course, said nothing on the air. But we now know he was in constant communications with his team, many/most? of which shared his concerns. That's why they stopped inviting Powell. So, the fact that Murdoch didn't say anything on the air isn't the issue. He watched FOX News do it, either out of malice, out of fear of his own viewers (that's not a legal defense, and FOX News has not raised it), or out of demonstrable negligence.

I bring up malice because it could be exactly that. Back to WaPo.

The conceit of Fox News has always been that its opinion hosts are conservative but its news-side produces real, neutral journalism. That conceit has repeatedly been called into question by disclosures showing that it viewed itself as allied with the GOP and the furtherance of its goals.

Additional disclosures reinforce that contradiction.

After CEO Suzanne Scott suggested on election night that Trump might win despite a historic popular-vote loss, Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch responded, “If that happens, god willing, we will have to defend the electoral college aggressively.” He added later, “Momentum in Pennsylvania looks good,” “Trump now ahead in Wisconsin!” and “Trump ahead in popular vote so far! Amazing.”

In his deposition, Rupert Murdoch acknowledged, “We were worried that Mr. Trump would lose the election and what Mr. Biden may do.”

Elsewhere, Rupert Murdoch is shown stating on Nov. 7 that he hoped Trump would win Arizona, even after Fox’s decision desk called it for Joe Biden, saying he was “still praying for Az to prove them wrong.”

The day before, Murdoch lamented, “With several states now disappointingly favoring Biden hard to claim foul everywhere.”

On Dec. 28, News Corp. chief executive Robert Thomson emailed Murdoch the front page of the New York Post calling for Trump to concede the election.

Thomson added: “Spoke to [former New York Post editor in chief] Col [Allan] over the weekend … having seen Trump up close, he agreed that we should take a stronger line. Georgia is crucial.”

Previously, documents showed Murdoch telling Scott on Nov. 16, “Trump will concede eventually and we should concentrate on Georgia, helping any way we can.”

And then, as quoted above, Trump tanked Georgia while FOX News watched in horror.

By telling everyone it was rigged, therefore, there was no point voting.

And FOX News didn't contradict him -- even though they knew he was lying.

This goes to motive. And as everyone including myself keeps posting, even the texts/emails we're seeing that aren't specifically about Dominion, further that motive, and establish a pattern of behavior. Patterns of behavior are evidence in court. Um, I think so. Is that correct, @cubby ?

But in the end, it's about Dominion. Establishing a pattern of behavior and motive are essential and damning, but what they said on topic is worse.

I cite the NYTimes because I paid for a sub dammit.

It had been more than a week since the news networks projected that Joseph R. Biden Jr. would become the next president. And Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham were at a loss about what to say on the air.

“What are we all going to do tmrw night?” Ms. Ingraham, the host of the 10 p.m. show on Fox News, asked her colleagues in a text message chain on Nov. 16, 2020.

Mr. Carlson responded that he planned to devote a significant chunk of his program to a little-known voting technology company that had become a target of Trump supporters who suspected the election had been rigged: Dominion Voting Systems.

“Haven’t said a word about it so far,” Mr. Carlson said, acknowledging that the conspiracy theories about Dominion’s purported role in a fictitious plot to siphon away votes from Trump were making him uneasy.

“The whole thing seems insane to me,” he wrote. “And Sidney Powell won’t release the evidence. Which I hate.” Ms. Powell, a legal adviser to the Trump campaign, was “making everyone paranoid and crazy, including me,” Mr. Carlson added.

We've seen some of those lines and that date before.

This article is still up on FOX News. It was written by Tucker Carlson. It is dated Nov 23, 2020, a week after that text exchange.

You've heard a lot over the past few days about the security of our electronic voting machines. This is a real and serious issue, no matter who raises it or who tries to dismiss it out of hand as a conspiracy theory.

Electronic voting is not as secure as traditional hand counting. It never will be as secure. Voters can see this, because it's obvious, and it makes them nervous. And why wouldn't it make them nervous? Our leaders have given us every reason not to trust technology. The people now telling us to stop asking questions about voting machines are the same ones who claimed that our phones weren't listening to us. They lie. We all know that.

Other countries don't use electronic voting because they know it undermines confidence in democracy. A system cannot function if no one trusts the vote. That's true here, too, as we're finding out. Going forward, we need to find out exactly what happened in this month's presidential election, no matter how long it takes the investigation to unfold or how much it costs.

Once we get answers from that investigation, we ought to revert immediately to the traditional system of voting, the one that served our democracy for hundreds of years. What we're doing now is not working. That's an understatement. As of Monday night, the state of New York still hadn't managed to count the votes in five House races thanks to mail-in voting. That's a disaster, and we should stop pretending that it's not.

Carlson then blames the media for being rigged against Trump, and not (for example) Trump ruining the country of his own free will, in public.

Then he blames the Democrats for using the courts to shut down the NRA, and not (for example) the NRA being a Russian money-laundering front run by a con man.

the NRA played a vastly reduced role in this election, and that made a huge difference in swing states like Pennsylvania and others.

Yep, that's Carlson admitting that without Russia money, they can't win swing states. By the way, has Carlson asked why Trump took all the 2022 money in his PAC and just kept it? For someone who's saying he's upset with lack of donor money being spent, you'd think he'd comment on lack of donor money being spent.

I particularly like that self-fulfilling prophecy he tried to push. "No-one trusts the system, because I told them not to, then reported on the lack of trust" he says.

To the best of my knowledge, Carlson did not offer anything even close to a retraction before Dominion sued, at which point it's no longer important.

FOX News, as previously mentioned, is trying to claim Dominion is taking things out of context. Hard to argue that, when I quoted their own website, but that's what they're going with. And it's even harder to take their actions as anything other than admission when this happens:

The sanitizing of the events of Jan. 6 on shows like Mr. Carlson’s for the last two years seems all the more glaring given his words on Jan. 7, 2021. The new documents contain a text message chain that the host had with his producers that morning.

When Mr. Carlson again predicts that Mr. Trump’s clout will fade as he “becomes incalculably less powerful” out of office, one of his producers frets that the last weeks of Mr. Trump’s presidency could bring even more chaos and danger.

“The Trump anger spiral is vicious,” the producer tells his boss.

“That’s for sure,” Mr. Carlson responds.

“Deadly,” the host adds. “We’ve got two weeks left. We can do this.”

It's too late to search for a parachute when you're halfway to the ground.

Oh -- and ain't this topical:

But it is not a full picture. Fox lawyers redacted the documents extensively, leaving much of what people said to one another under seal. The New York Times and several other media outlets are challenging the legality of those redactions.

In other words, we haven't even seen the bad part yet. FOX News claiming the texts we have seen are out of context, the few texts that they've shown so far, is a lot like...um...say, taking the 2 minutes from 41,000 minutes of footage of a riot, picking the 2 minutes that aren't showing violence, claiming therefore that the rest of the footage where violence was happening was Fake News conspiracy theory corruption.

I mean, who would do that?

[cubby]

Once again, it's time for Guess the Speaker!



"That could be anyone...wait, which thread is this?"

Yeah...it's Tucker Carlson.



Naturally, FOX News responded.



"So, wait, Dominion filed false texts?"

No.

"...then what is FOX News saying?"

I think they're saying "We got caught red-handed and we're fucked".

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, I thought we were done.



That is Murdoch, emailing the CEO of FOX News, that he knew for a fact that Hannity was telling FOX News viewers one thing and his colleagues another.

But wait! There's more.



That was a conversation between A=Fox News host Maria Bartiromo and B=Steve Bannon, Jan 4th. Now, Bartiromo seems to be expressing the belief that there was, in fact, fraud. As a reminder, there was no evidence of fraud found, and by Jan 4th Trump had lost almost all of the 60 court cases he would eventually lose. As a reminder, that is not defense for defamation. Bartiromo should have known by then the only evidence of fraud was wishful thinking and people her own boss told her were crazy.

To the best of my knowledge, Bartiromo has not taken the stand. FOX News has claimed, in court, under oath, that Bartiromo's emails show that she/FOX News did not act with actual malice. (The response is still "she acted with unreasonable negligence, so fuck off")

Also to the best of my knowledge, no FOX News employee that did take the stand, said under oath they believed the claims were true. Considering the texts and emails we're getting, that was a good move in that it avoided perjury, but it's going to cost their company.

Bartiromo's defiance would continue, it seems. From Nov 21, a conversation between Bartiromo and Tony Fratto, a Dominion employee.



I also really like this one:



That was an until-recently private group chat where Ingraham was talking with Carlson and Hannity, Nov 16th.

No evidence had ever been presented about election fraud that made it to court and survived. It was completely fabricated. Fratto was right: the claims were unsubstantiated because they were false. And FOX News either knew that, or should have in Bartiromo's case, and pushed it hard anyhow. FOX News knew their claims were causing death threats, not that it's the issue in this court case, but they knew and still pushed the theory they knew was false.

Expect more proof that FOX News defamed Dominion, and was a knowing vendor of lies for money, as the case continues.

- - - Updated - - -

Everyone except FOX News is posting more or less the same things about the Dominion lawsuit. Namely, that FOX News is full of backbiting con men who privately admitted Trump was a loathesome liar while on the air telling their viewers that Trump was fighting the good fight.

WaPo, for example, found this exchange about Trump tanking Georgia on purpose while they sat back and watched in horror.



While a rift between FOX News and Trump is, of course, so gratifying, it's not something you can sue over. In terms of defamation, however, multiple articles pointed out this on-the-stand admission string by Murdoch. We've seen some of it, I'm showing more.



Murdoch, of course, said nothing on the air. But we now know he was in constant communications with his team, many/most? of which shared his concerns. That's why they stopped inviting Powell. So, the fact that Murdoch didn't say anything on the air isn't the issue. He watched FOX News do it, either out of malice, out of fear of his own viewers (that's not a legal defense, and FOX News has not raised it), or out of demonstrable negligence.

I bring up malice because it could be exactly that. Back to WaPo.



And then, as quoted above, Trump tanked Georgia while FOX News watched in horror.

By telling everyone it was rigged, therefore, there was no point voting.

And FOX News didn't contradict him -- even though they knew he was lying.

This goes to motive. And as everyone including myself keeps posting, even the texts/emails we're seeing that aren't specifically about Dominion, further that motive, and establish a pattern of behavior. Patterns of behavior are evidence in court. Um, I think so. Is that correct, @cubby ?

They are indeed. This case is fascinating to watch. Faux "News" is in a very bad position, and might already be seeking to settle the case. The facts are very much in Dominion's favor, more so than we've seen, and the fact that we finally get to call Faux "News" out on their litany of lies is icing on the cake.

[Breccia]

. The facts are very much in Dominion's favor, more so than we've seen, and the fact that we finally get to call Faux "News" out on their litany of lies is icing on the cake.

Are you referring to FOX News' redactions of the texts and emails that made it to the public eye, suggesting those items kept redacted are direct evidence against them even worse than what we've seen? Or did I miss a memo?

As for the rest, Talking Points Memo has an article titled'Why Hasn’t Fox News Settled With Dominion?' It's actually their second on this topic by two different authors.

Fox News viewers don’t care whether the network was “in the wrong.” If anything, they celebrate and reward Fox News’ transgressive behavior. If Fox News takes the case to trial and loses, it and its viewers can easily dismiss it as another rigged, liberal, stabbed-in-the-back setup by their foes. They will all be victims together of Dominion’s jihad against them.

But that doesn’t work if Fox News settles. It’s not the admission of wrongdoing that’s the issue: It’s the capitulation. That is harder to spin up into a made-up narrative of victimization and fighting the good fight.

How do I know this? Because there’s an almost perfect parallel in the Dominion lawsuit itself: Fox News’ call of Arizona for Biden on election night.

As long as Fox News remains in its self-created bubble of propaganda, misinformation, and uncritical reporting, its relationship with its viewers remains intact and the spin cycle can continue. If Fox News punctures that bubble, it risks its viewership and its entire business model. That’s what happened when the network projected a Biden win in Arizona. In fact, in Dominion’s convincing telling, the damage to Fox News’ reputation with its viewers over the Arizona call is what motivated Rupert et al. to launch the libelous attacks on Dominion.

The authors are saying that FOX News isn't settling, because they'd rather lose $1.6 billion but keep the viewers they intentionally lied to for years. It is a better business model for FOX News specifically to cultivate willfully ignorant viewers and then lie to them, even if it means they take the occasional billion-dollar hit.

We've talked about how the cospiracy theory-ridden alt-right "news" works before. FOX News doesn't have a majority of viewers and possibly never will, but they do have a plurality. Simply put, there are lots of places to get factual, honest information. A lot of reasonable people watch multiple sources, and they tend to agree on objectively true information, because that's what "objectively true" means. FOX News gets pretty much everyone who only wants to be told Trump won and vaccines don't work. There are other options, like Newsmax and OANN, but FOX News dwarfs them. But there are options viewers can flock to, the second FOX News outright says "Trump lost and we knew the whole time".

For those of you who care about the numbers, Forbes reminds us that FOX News was the only "news" source that lost viewers in Jan 2021, when gosh, kind of a lot was going on. They lost even more later when things calmed down, more than most other sources did.

They've since recovered...but Trump's rabid fanbase has a limit of how many times they'll forgive someone who isn't Trump. It's once, tops.

Speaking of coming in behind MSNBC, MSNBC has another view on the topic. FOX News might want to settle, but Dominion doesn't care, because they're winning that decisively.

The trial process is what is producing all of this discovery material, all these text messages and all these documents which expose the hypocrisy of the Big Lie. ... There’s an educational function. ... It also sends a message that you cannot irresponsibly make allegations against people or corporate entities without foundation, without a basis.

My understanding — and again, it’s just from reading the newspaper — Dominion doesn’t want to settle this case. They want to try it for that reason. They want a lot of these facts to be laid bare in a courtroom in a public proceeding. We’re headed there. There may be more of these kinds of behind-the-scenes allegations, and I do think that there’s a useful long-term benefit for people to understand.

-- former House Jan. 6 committee investigator and former federal prosecutor Tim Heaphy

Even if FOX News wins (for example, by convincing 1/12th of a small group that Dominion didn't lose any money) their rampant acknowledgement that there was no election fraud is now public. Dominion might consider that a win, just like the rest of America.

P.S. Murdoch kept Lindell's ads on the air because of how much Lindell was paying him.

"The man is on every night. Pays us a lot of money," read a snippet from Murdoch's January deposition in a court filing released on Monday. "At first you think it's comic, and then you get bored."

Murdoch went on to admit in his deposition that he could have pulled Lindell's MyPillow advertisements — but did not. This was even after the pillow CEO made wild, unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud on Fox News' programs, per Dominion's court filing.

"It is not red or blue, it is green," Murdoch agreed during his deposition — presumably a reference to money.

FOX News is under no obligation to refuse Lindell's money for advertising, of course. They're permitted to the guilt by association they were paid for.

Dominion has also claimed the CEO of FOX News pushed for Lindell bookings and sent Lindell gifts. Lindell denies this, but FOX News has not denied, mostly because



it wouldn't matter if they did anymore.

Lindell, by the way, was quoted in this article from 3 days ago:

I mean, I'm glad that Fox News doesn't boycott because it has nothing to do with MyPillow and my 2,000 employees if I'm standing up for my country and trying to try to raise the flag of these machine companies that were hacked

"Isn't Dominion suing Lindell for that?"

I have seen nothing about this lawsuit since SCOTUS declined to block it in October. Lindell doesn't have $1.3 billion -- last I saw, he was worth $50 million. The reasons that Dominion/Lindell hasn't settled is far more obvious: Lindell refuses to admit wrongdoing, and he couldn't offer Dominion something of sufficient value if he tried.

Incidentally, with the FOX News evidence coming forward, Lindell is in a really bad place. FOX News is unintentionally selling Lindell out, and they're accidentally doing it under oath. Yeah, everything put into evidence in the FOX News lawsuit is going to be used in the Lindell lawsuit. I would say he should have settled while he had the chance, but again, I don't think that was even a smidge realistic. FOX News might call for a wipe, they might not, but there's enough funds in the GB to pay for repairs. Lindell's gear is in the red and spent all his gold on "buff potions".

[Dontrike]

Another Fox host has spoken about the lawsuit, it's about what you expect with "Blah blah blah, we were only reporting both sides, blah blah blah, First Amendment attack, blah blah blah, you have to prove malice.

Kurtz largely defended Fox News' handling of the 2020 election claims, accusing critics of "rooting for" Fox News to "be wiped out as a company because they can't stand the relatively conservative views of a handful of opinion hosts."

He said on Sunday that the lawsuit represents a "free speech" issue and that Fox News hosts did their due diligence as reporters to include both sides of the issue. He noted that host Maria Bartiromo of Sunday Morning Futures invited Dominion CEO John Poulos to appear on her show, but that he declined her request.

He described the suit as a "major test" for the First Amendment.

"Legally, Dominion must prove Fox acted with malice or reckless disregard for the truth. There was, to be sure, straight reporting by the news division, which also caused some friction," Kurtz said. "But the fact some people in the chain of command privately dismissed court claims as nuts or outlandish or insane doesn't necessarily mean that Fox shouldn't cover or comment on the extremely newsworthy spectacle of a president saying the election was stolen."

"Relatively conservative views" is putting Fox further left with an outright lie like that. As for needing to prove malice and disregard for the truth he must not have seen the texts and emails that were released.

- - - Updated - - -

And now Smartmatic is suing Fox as well, for $2.7 billion.

Smartmatic claims that more than 100 false statements were broadcast by Fox News hosts and guests. Smartmatic was falsely said to have been involved in 2020 election counts in six battleground states – in fact, it was present only at the count in Los Angeles county.

Fox responded with this

A spokesperson for the broadcaster told the Guardian: “Freedom of the press is foundational to our democracy and must be protected, in addition to the damages claims being outrageous, unsupported and not rooted in sound financial analysis, serving as nothing more than a flagrant attempt to deter our journalists from doing their jobs. There is nothing more newsworthy than covering the president of the US and his lawyers making allegations.”

"Doing their jobs" is sure a weird way of saying "Our propagandists are supposed to lie! Why are you trying to stop us!!!1!!"


The judge sort of agrees with Smartmatic, at least when it comes to going to court.

“New York is pretty protective of media rights,” said Roy Gutterman, a media law professor at Syracuse University who was a consultant early on in the Smartmatic case advising a non-party entity. “Every year I read a lot of cases from New York, and it’s hard to be successful in this state.”

Despite this tough challenge, so far the wind is in Smartmatic’s sails. David Cohen, the New York supreme court justice presiding over the litigation, has indicated that the company has a strong enough case to go to trial.

In last week’s ruling, Cohen found that “at a minimum, Fox News turned a blind eye to a litany of outrageous claims” about Smartmatic. “Plaintiffs have pleaded facts sufficient to allow a jury to infer that Fox News acted with actual malice.”

[Breccia]

And now Smartmatic is suing Fox as well, for $2.7 billion.

I'm sure Dominion and Smartmatic will be happy to share evidence.

But you know who's not happy? Other right-wing sources realizing that lying for profit is going to catch up with them. I bring you the Washington Examiner.

Let’s establish a few facts. First, legacy media outlets despise Fox News for its unrivaled commercial success. If you combine CNN and MSNBC’s audiences, whether in the morning, daytime, prime time, or weekend, they do not match Fox News.

Correct. Irrelevant. Other news sources being jealous is not license to commit slander or libel.

Second, the Democratic Party, the major newspapers, and other cable networks despise Fox News because they possess editorial independence that contrasts with their preferred narrative.

Well, "independence that contrasts" is an interesting way to say "lie on purpose for money". Also, irrelevant. "Editorial independence" is not license to commit slander or libel.

Third, it is not as if the full facts were never presented or offered on Fox’s air. To give just one example, Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo listened to Dominion’s corporate position and offered to have its CEO on air.

Correct. Irrelevant. "Your Honor, how about all those people my client didn't murder?" is still my favorfite lack of defense. If anything, some hosts telling the truth and other hosts lying is evidence the company knew it was lying. I know the Washington Examiner isn't their lawyer, but they're not doing a good job defending FOX News here.

Finally, and most importantly, while the Dominion lawsuit appears to be a loaded weapon trained on the heart of one cable news network, its true target is our treasured independent and free press.

This is where the Washington Examiner is caught outright lying. For one, "freedom of the press" never once mentions that a media source is immune to consequences of their own actions. Such as being caught maliciously lying about someone for money. This was never about "we covered what other people said" because, in that case, Dominion would have also sued CNN. The difference, is CNN not only said the claims were false, but even had hosts/guests mocking the claims. (Incidentally, why haven't Powell or Giuliani sued CNN for slander or libel? Oh, right, their claims were false, and CNN said so)

The issue was, is, and will be that FOX News presented the "election fraud" as if it was the truth when they knew it was not, and said Dominion/Smartmatic were compromised/complicit when they were not, on their own accord.

W.E. goes on from there with "why didn't anyone sue XXX because YYY?" and the answer remains the same: XXX didn't intentionally lie for money. FOX News did.

P.S. Tucker Carlson called Trump autistic in a good way.

[s_bushido]

Well, "independence that contrasts" is an interesting way to say "lie on purpose for money". Also, irrelevant. "Editorial independence" is not license to commit slander or libel.

It's also hilarious given that this entire story has turned out to be "we demonstrably don't believe the horseshit we're peddling, but have to keep shoveling it anyway both because that's what sells and that's the narrative the GOP establishment wants us to push."

[Strange One]

It's also hilarious given that this entire story has turned out to be "we demonstrably don't believe the horseshit we're peddling, but have to keep shoveling it anyway both because that's what sells and that's the narrative the GOP establishment wants us to push."

@tehdang yumyumyumyum

[Breccia]

As good a place as any to put this, if it hasn't already been linked in some way.

21% of Fox News Viewers Trust Network Less After Texts Revealed in Dominion Lawsuit: Survey

More than a fifth of Fox News Channel viewers are less trusting of the cable network in the wake of publicly disclosed text messages and emails from Fox executives and on-air personalities, according to a new survey.

But only 9% of Fox News viewers say they aren’t watching the network as much as they used to, per research provided exclusively to Variety Intelligence Platform by consumer insights specialists Maru Group.

Much more in the link, including graphs and such.

As low as the numbers are, its still something, I guess.

It is an interesting split, the 21% of FOX News viewers who trust FOX News less, but only 9% are watching less. This means, at the minimum, 12% of FOX News viewers trust them less but haven't stopped or slowed watching.

Now, you're allowed to watch a news company an entertainment company pretending to be the news while objectively lying all you want. You're even allowed to watch one you don't trust and admit you don't trust. I just wanted to point out that, based on that survey, about one in eight FOX News viewers watches them without trusting them.

Just think it's an interesting statistic. Wonder how it tracks against other channels?

[DarkTZeratul]

I just wanted to point out that, based on that survey, about one in eight FOX News viewers watches them without trusting them.

At least one in eight. We don't know how many people already didn't trust them but still watch.

[Breccia]

At least one in eight. We don't know how many people already didn't trust them but still watch.

Ooo, good point. I don't think that was on the list of options.

[Edge-]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/20/b...grossberg.html

A Fox News producer who has worked with the hosts Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson filed lawsuits against the company in New York and Delaware on Monday, accusing Fox lawyers of coercing her into giving misleading testimony in the continuing legal battle around the network’s coverage of unfounded claims about election fraud.

The producer, Abby Grossberg, said Fox lawyers had tried to position her and Ms. Bartiromo to take the blame for Fox’s repeated airing of conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems and its supposed role in manipulating the results of the 2020 presidential election. Dominion has filed a $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox. Ms. Grossberg said the effort to place blame on her and Ms. Bartiromo was rooted in rampant misogyny and discrimination at the network.

Oh well helllllooooooooooooo there, new salacious claims. Surely nothing like this would happen at a network where one of its former hosts famously decided to retire to spend more time with his family around the same time there was widespread public reporting over the millions Fox News paid in settlements to cover sexual harassment claims from a half-dozen women, could it?

The new lawsuits, coupled with revelations from the Dominion legal fight, shed light on the rivalries and turf battles that raged at Fox News in the wake of the 2020 election, as network executives fought to hold on to viewers furious at the top-rated network for accurately reporting on President Donald J. Trump’s defeat in Arizona, a crucial swing state.

The lawsuits also include details about Ms. Grossberg’s work life at Fox and on Mr. Carlson’s show. Ms. Grossberg says she and other women endured frank and open sexism from co-workers and superiors at the network, which has been dogged for years by lawsuits and allegations about sexual harassment by Fox executives and stars.

The network’s disregard for women, Ms. Grossberg alleged, left her and Ms. Bartiromo understaffed — stretched too thin to properly vet the truthfulness of claims made against Dominion on the air. At times, Ms. Grossberg said, she was the only full-time employee dedicated solely to Ms. Bartiromo’s Sunday-morning show.

In her complaints, Ms. Grossberg accuses lawyers for Fox News of coaching her in “a coercive and intimidating manner” before her September deposition in the Dominion case. The lawyers, she said, gave her the impression that she had to avoid mentioning prominent male executives and on-air talent to protect them from any blame, while putting her own reputation at risk.

“That’s what the culture is there,” Ms. Grossberg said in an interview on Monday evening. “They don’t respect or value women.”

On Monday afternoon, Fox filed its own suit against Ms. Grossberg, seeking to enjoin her from filing claims that would shed light on her discussions with the company’s lawyers. A judge has not yet ruled on Fox’s suit. Later on Monday, according to her lawyer, Parisis G. Filippatos, Fox also placed Ms. Grossberg on forced administrative leave.

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Ms. Grossberg’s lawsuits were filed in the Southern District of New York and in Superior Court in Delaware, where a pretrial hearing in the Dominion defamation lawsuit is scheduled for Tuesday.

In a statement, a Fox spokeswoman said: “Fox News Media engaged an independent outside counsel to immediately investigate the concerns raised by Ms. Grossberg, which were made following a critical performance review. We will vigorously defend these claims.”

According to the lawsuits filed by Ms. Grossberg, Fox superiors called Ms. Bartiromo a “crazy bitch” who was “menopausal” and asked Ms. Grossberg to cut the host out of coverage discussions.

Last year, she began working as a senior booking producer at “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” On her first full day, according to the lawsuit, Ms. Grossberg discovered that the show’s Manhattan work space was decorated with large pictures of Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, then the House speaker, wearing a plunging swimsuit.

The next day, Justin Wells, Mr. Carlson’s top producer, called Ms. Grossberg into his office, she said, to ask whether Ms. Bartiromo was having a sexual relationship with the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy.

Mr. Carlson’s staff joked about Jews and freely deployed a vulgar term for women, according to the complaint.

Later that fall, it said, before an appearance on the show by Tudor Dixon, the Republican candidate for Michigan governor, Mr. Carlson’s staff held a mock debate about whether they would prefer to have sex with Ms. Dixon or her Democratic opponent, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

After Ms. Grossberg complained about harassment from two male producers on the show, she was pulled into a meeting with human resources and told that she was not performing her duties, according to the complaint.

Some text exchanges between Ms. Grossberg and Ms. Bartiromo were released as part of court filings in the Dominion lawsuit. In one instance, Ms. Bartiromo asked Ms. Grossberg if she should have pushed Mr. Trump in an interview on whether he would peacefully transition from the presidency. Ms. Grossberg replied: “To be honest, our audience doesn’t want to hear about a peaceful transition.”

During her deposition, Ms. Grossberg was asked if she cared whether claims made on Ms. Bartiromo’s show were true or false. According to the transcript, Ms. Grossberg answered: “No. Because we didn’t know if they were true or false at that time.” When asked if she felt it was important to correct a false claim made on the air, Ms. Grossberg answered: “No.”

In her lawsuits, Ms. Grossberg said she would have answered those questions differently but had been “coached by and intimidated by” Fox’s lawyers.

Ms. Grossberg claimed that Fox lawyers pressured her to downplay a text exchange between her and David Clark, then the senior vice president of weekend news, regarding a segment with Rudolph W. Giuliani, a lawyer for Mr. Trump. Mr. Clark texted: “There will be no ‘fact checking’ today.”

Ms. Grossberg said she had understood Mr. Clark to mean that Ms. Bartiromo was not to push back against Mr. Giuliani’s false claims of widespread election fraud.

The Fox spokeswoman said Mr. Clark had been referring instead to a practice in which Fox shows sometimes criticized material that had aired elsewhere on the network.

Rest of the article for context and anyone interested.

[Breccia]

Oh well helllllooooooooooooo there, new salacious claims.

(a few moments later)

Fox News sued a Tucker Carlson producer named in the Dominion lawsuit for threatening to expose its legal secrets

Fox News Network sued one of its own producers to try to get a court to stop her from filing a lawsuit that could contain privileged information.

The network sued Abby Grossberg on Monday, claiming that she has threatened to sue Fox News for discrimination and retaliation. Fox News didn't go into detail on her lawsuit plans or her allegations, but said her lawyer has threatened to include details from confidential conversations she had with Fox News attorneys.

"Ms. Grossberg has threatened to disclose FOX News Media's attorney-client privileged information and we have filed a temporary restraining order to protect our rights," a Fox News spokesperson said in a statement to Insider.

What they did not say: "It's not true".

Parisis G. Filippatos, a lawyer for Grossberg, said Fox's complaint was "another flagrant attempt to chill her from exercising her rights to free herself from the toxic work environment at Fox News."

"All of the issues coyly addressed by Fox's lawsuit today will be fully aired in the appropriate courts of law in the very near future," he told Insider. "We look forward to justice being done."

As per usual, I ask @cubby for a mix of (a) informed, expert opinion and (b) I think he'll find it funny, but does FOX News have a case here? Grossberg isn't a lawyer, and I'm pretty sure both intimidation of a witness, and encouraging a witness to lie on the stand, are not covered by privilege. In fact, I think when your boss's lawyer demands that you lie on the stand, you're supposed to tell the judge pretty much immediately.