A Delaware judge refused on Tuesday to dismiss Dominion Voting System’s defamation case against Fox News’ parent company over its allegations that Dominion aided in rigging the 2020 election in favor of PresidentJoe Biden.
Dominion’s accusations “support a reasonable inference that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch either knew Dominion had not manipulated the election or at least recklessly disregarded the truth when they allegedly caused Fox News to propagate its claims about Dominion,” Judge Eric Davis said in this ruling.
Davis cited evidence that Murdoch had called former President Donald Trump in the days following the election to tell him that he had lost the election. Dominion claimed that although Murdoch himself did not believe that Trump had won the election, he still urged those on-air to perpetuate the conspiracy theory that the election was rigged. Fox has said that under the first amendment, they should be allowed to say what they wanted as it was in the public’s interest to know about possible fraud.
The lawsuit, filed in March 2021, is for $1.6 billion. It was initially only targeted at Fox News but later expanded to Fox Corp and Fox Broadcasting so the Murdochs would also be liable for their role.
“We are pleased to see this process moving forward to hold Fox accountable,” Dominion said in a statement.
