In the early afternoon of September 21, The New York Times reported on a Trump campaign memo from November 14, 2020, that debunked allegations concerning election services providers Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic that would continue to be pushed by then-Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell.
Nearly 24 hours later, Fox News has still not mentioned the report or the memo on air – even though the memo debunked specific claims that had been made on Fox News previously.
The Times report explained:
You can read the whole memo here.
It is not hard to imagine why Fox News would be uncomfortable discussing this campaign memo. As Media Matters has meticulously documented, Fox News itself aired all of these Dominion conspiracy theories (and more) – many times well after the date of the memo; the network is currently being sued by both Dominion and Smartmatic.
If even the Trump campaign was able to do basic research showing that these claims were false, then clearly Fox News could have as well.
Instead, Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer on November 16 called the conspiracy theories “convincing.” And other Fox News figures followed suit.
Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time the network knowingly aired false claims for partisan purposes.