Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity Among Hosts to be Deposed in Dominion’s $1.6 Billion Lawsuit Against Fox News
Multiple current and one former Fox News hosts have been or will be deposed in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion lawsuit against the network in the coming days, according to a new report.
Among them are prime time stars Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, as well as host Jeanine Pirro and Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy.
Citing court records in Delaware Superior Court, New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters reported former Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs has also been asked to appear.
Peters reported:
Sean Hannity became the latest Fox star to be called for a deposition by Dominion’s legal team, according to a new filing in Delaware Superior Court. He is scheduled to appear on Wednesday.
Tucker Carlson is set to face questioning on Friday. Lou Dobbs, whose Fox Business show was canceled last year, is scheduled to appear on Tuesday. Others who have been deposed recently include Jeanine Pirro, Steve Doocy and a number of high-level Fox producers, court records show.
Dobbs left the company early last year. Dominion’s lawyers might also seek comments from Fox News executives Suzanne Scott and Jay Wallace, and Fox’s owners.
“Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, whose family owns Fox, could follow in the coming weeks,” Peters reported.
Dominion sued the network for alleged defamation following the 2020 election, accusing the network of spreading false claims of massive voter fraud that denied former President Donald Trump a win.
The lawsuit argues:
Fox, one of the most powerful media companies in the United States, gave life to a manufactured storyline about election fraud that cast a then-little- known voting machine company called Dominion as the villain. After the November 3, 2020 Presidential Election, viewers began fleeing Fox in favor of media outlets endorsing the lie that massive fraud caused President Trump to lose the election.
They saw Fox as insufficiently supportive of President Trump, including because Fox was the first network to declare that President Trump lost Arizona. So Fox set out to lure viewers back—including President Trump himself— by intentionally and falsely blaming Dominion for President Trump’s loss by rigging the election.
Fox News Media told Mediaite in a statement the network is confident it will prevail in court, and also defended its employees for “doing their jobs.”
“We are confident we will prevail as 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,” Fox News Media said.
The defamation trial is scheduled to begin next April.
