Tucker Carlson, Jeanine Pirro, Sean Hannity and Others Set To Testify at Fox Defamation Trial
AP Photo/Richard Drew, File
Fox News filed a letter on Tuesday in Delaware Superior Court confirming who will be available to testify on behalf of the network in Dominion Voting System’s $1.6 billion defamation suit.
The letter listed some of cable news’s top personalities who would be available to testify, including Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo, Sean Hannity, and Jeanine Pirro.
Former Fox host Lou Dobbs, whose interview with 2020 interview with attorney Sidney Powell has been central to Dominion’s allegations, is also on the list.
Top Fox News executives like CEO Suzanne Scott, President Jay Wallace, Executive Vice President of Primetime Programming Meade Cooper, and Executive Producer of Tucker Carlson Tonight Justin Wells were also on the list.
The voting technology company is suing Fox News, alleging the network knowingly aired election lies and conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election — falsely implicating Dominion.
“Executives at all levels of Fox — both (Fox News Network) and (Fox Corporation) — knowingly opened Fox’s airwaves to false conspiracy theories about Dominion,” Dominion wrote in a recently unsealed filing. A five-week trial is currently scheduled to begin in mid-April.
Fox News has released the following statement regarding Dominion’s allegations:
“This case is and always has been about the First Amendment protections of the media’s absolute right to cover the news. FOX will continue to fiercely advocate for the rights of free speech and a free press as we move into the next phase of these proceedings.”
The letter also stated Fox “intends to bring the following live witnesses to trial in its case who are on Dominion’s designation witness list: Bret Baier, Will Cain, Alex Hooper, Dana Perino, and Eric Shawn.” Baier, Cain, Perino, and Shawn are all well-known Fox News anchors and correspondents, while Hooper is a senior producer – who is mentioned in court filings regarding his time as a producer for Dobbs.
Notably, Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of Fox’s parent Fox Corp., is not on the witness list. But as Reuters noted, Tuesday’s filing “promises a high-wattage parade of witnesses at the jury trial scheduled to start on April 17 and expected to last about four weeks.”
On Friday, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis issued his ruling on three motions for summary judgment, concluding that a jury will decide whether or not the network aired false claims with “actual malice” – the standard for legal defamation.
“The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that (it) is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,” Davis ruled in his summary judgment ruling. Davis additionally found that Fox News cannot argue that statements made about Dominion on-air were asserted protected opinion or simply “neutral” newsworthy allegations.
