Dominion Voter Systems and Fox News have exchanged further barbs in the $1.6 billion defamation case brought by the voting machine company against the US cable news network over its broadcast of Donald Trump's lies that his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud.
In a court filing, Dominion asked a judge to decide the case in its favor because Fox News had no evidence none, zero supporting those lies.
This concession should come as no surprise. Discovery into Fox shows that Fox has always known the absurdity of the Dominion's election story, from the top of the organization to the bottom. The owners, Rupert Murdoch, down and top hosts, including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, have been shown to have derided Trump, his surrogates, and the lies they pushed about the 2020 election, but they have kept giving them air time, fearing viewers would desert to competing networks.
In response to Dominion's comments on Wednesday, Fox News called the suit an unprecedented effort to punish the press for covering and commenting on the most newsworthy story of the day, and an effort to publicly smear a media organization just for having the temerity to cover and comment on allegations being pressed by the sitting president of the United States.
Dominion said Fox News was claiming a first amendment license to knowingly spread lies, and said Fox would have its top personalities reporting truth to its audience if Fox cared about the truth that it now acknowledges.
If not for Dominion's sake, then for the sake of the significant percentage of Americans who still believe the 2020 election was stolen, including so many of Fox's loyal viewers who heard it over and over again on Fox's airwaves. Experts believe that the case could prove costly for Fox News, even though defamation lawsuits are notoriously hard to win.
The Harvard law professor Laurence H Tribe told the Guardian last month: "I have never seen a defamation case with such overwhelming proof that the defendant admitted in writing that it was making up fake information in order to increase its viewership and revenues."
Fox and its producers and performers were lying as part of their business model. In a separate development late on Wednesday, Fox News issued a statement in response to a complaint filed by Media Matters, a liberal watchdog group.
Media Matters says a decision by Murdoch to share a Biden campaign ad with Trump's son in law and chief adviser Jared Kushner was revealed in filings in the Dominion suit as an illegal campaign contribution, punishable by a fine.
The Biden campaign ads was available on YouTube and had even run on public airwaves, according to Fox News. Dominion has been caught red-handed again, using more distortions and misinformation in their PR campaign to smear Fox News and trample on free speech and freedom of the press. Angelo Carusone, the chief executive of Media Matters, told the Guardian: Fox can save it for the FEC. It is Rupert Murdoch's own words and acknowledgment. Given the tome of Fox's misdeeds and deceit exposed, it is a little weird that this is what their PR shop is focusing on.