Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has admitted that Fox News commentators supported false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Trump, according to court documents made public Monday.
“Some of our commentators supported them,” Murdoch admitted under oath when asked in a defamation lawsuit whether any of the station’s analysts – Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro and Sean Hannity – defended the false claim of that the electoral victory does not belong to the current president of the United States, Joe Biden.
The businessman said he did not intervene to prevent commentators from furthering these accusations. However, he denied that the company supported the election of Donald Trump as an entity.
In the comments, the Fox Corporation CEO called some of Trump’s election lies as hogwash.
Fox News, for its part, lashed out at the company that took it to court, Dominion, which sells ‘software’ for electronic voting, describing the judicial process as dubious.
“The Dominion process has always been more focused on what will make the news than what can withstand legal and factual scrutiny,” according to a statement published by the US television channel CNN.
Fox News has defended the actions of station officials, as well as guests, during the 2020 election, noting that the live voter fraud allegations were taken out of context.
Dominion, which filed the lawsuit for 1.6 billion dollars (1.51 billion euros), tries to show that those responsible for the news channel knew that Trump’s statements were false, but that they were transmitting them in any way for profit.
Source: TSF
