Fox News is facing legal troubles as Dominion and Smartmatic, two voting systems companies, sue the media company for airing unsubstantiated claims about their Voting machines stealing votes from Donald Trump. Dominion is seeking $1.6 billion in damages, while Smartmatic is seeking $2.7 billion. Despite Fox’s efforts to keep internal conversations private and limit the lawsuit, the media company has faced blow after blow in court.
Last week, a judge granted Dominion access to some of Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott’s emails and text messages. More details have trickled out about what was going on behind the scenes at the media company in the weeks after the election. On Sunday, Fox’s legal woes may have become even more complicated by the fact that Fox Corp.’s top lawyer, Viet Dinh, only became licensed to practice law in California in June, despite becoming the company’s chief legal officer in September 2018.
Dinh is licensed to practice law in Washington, DC, but when the issue of his law license in California where he is based first came to Fox’s attention internally, the lawyer dismissed the concern. “More recently, however, he has scrambled to quietly fix his licensing issue, which could open up otherwise privileged, and potentially sensitive or embarrassing, communications with Murdoch to discovery because they don’t qualify for attorney-client privilege,” the outlet reported.
The licensing issue only adds to the headache Fox is facing with these cases. Fox claims it is protected by the First Amendment and that the outlet was covering newsworthy allegations. Some of Fox’s biggest stars, like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, are being deposed, and Scott is also expected to be deposed soon. Meanwhile, Fox’s efforts to “limit what internal communications it is required to hand over to Dominion,” per the Times, haven’t been going so well.
Last month, a Manhattan judge ordered Fox News to start turning over documents to Smartmatic. Smartmatic lawyer J. Erik Connolly is already eying the possibility of accessing Dinh’s communications with Fox executives. “That is something Smartmatic will be asking for as we move forward with discovery,” Connolly told the outlet.
Dominion’s CEO, John Polous, is beginning to speak out about the damage he claims Fox has done to his company. “People have been put into danger,” Polous told Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes Sunday night of the continued repercussions his employees have felt from Fox’s reports. Current and former Fox hosts including Maria Bartiromo and Lou Dobbs allegedly amplified discredited claims about Dominion such as that Dominion had, among other things, paid “kickbacks” to government officials who use its services and committed Election fraud. “Their families have been put into danger,” said Polous. “Their lives have been upended and all because of lies.”
Original Story at www.vanityfair.com – 2022-10-24 07:00:00
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