A recent filing by Dominion Voting Systems in its ongoing lawsuit against Fox News reveals the extent to which the network knew it was pushing false claims to its viewers in the aftermath of the 2020 election by suggesting that Dominion’s machines were involved in voter fraud. Totalling 192 pages, the filing lays out a seemingly endless list of evidence showing how “literally dozens of people with editorial responsibility” — from producers to on-air personalities to executives to Fox Corp. Chairperson Rupert Murdoch himself — acted with, in Dominion’s view, “actual malice.”

The filing includes a text message exchange from November 12, 2020, between Tommy Firth, a producer for prime-time show The Ingraham Angle, and Fox executive Ron Mitchell, who was “one of the Fox executives responsible for overseeing” the show. In the text messages, both appear to acknowledge that claims that Dominion had engaged in voter fraud were incorrect and absurd.

“This dominion shit is going to give me a fucking aneurysm—as many times as I’ve told Laura it’s bs, she sees shit posters and trump tweeting about it,” Firth texted Mitchell in part. The rest of the message is redacted.

“This is the Bill Gates/microchip angle to voter fraud,” Mitchell responded, referencing the debunked conspiracy theory that Gates was using COVID-19 vaccines to implant microchips into the population for the purposes of mass surveillance.

“How’s it going [with] the kooks?” Mitchell texted Firth later that day.

The filing is the latest development in the legal battle between Fox and Dominion Voting Systems after the company filed a lawsuit against the network in March 2021. It is by far the biggest disclosure of evidence from Dominion’s lawyers so far in the case. Depositions of the Fox News stars began around August 2022. 

Dominion is seeking to prove that Fox News knew it was broadcasting false information and that its stars were admitting the truth in private even as they continued to spread lies about voting irregularities on the air.

Some of Fox News’ biggest names repeated the lies about Dominion or otherwise smeared the company, including Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Maria Bartiromo, and Lou Dobbs. Trump’s lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, and Sidney Powell also appeared on the network to spread falsehoods about Dominion. The network continued to push the lies even after high-ranking Fox executives and influential network hosts knew the information was false.

Among the myriad false accusations made on Fox were claims that Dominion machines altered vote counts, that the company gave “kickbacks” to elected officials, and that the voting machines were owned or controlled by foreign governments.