More Dominion filings show Fox News intentionally misled its audience about the 2020 presidential election

Dominion Voting Systems' defamation lawsuit against Fox Corp. and Fox News continues to reveal more evidence of how the network intentionally misled its viewers during the 2020 presidential election. Recently released Dominion slides demonstrate that Fox’s Decision Team warned of a possible red mirage on election night that is, everyone at the network knew that many states would count Republican-leaning in person ballots before counting Democratic-leaning mail-in ballots. Yet, despite that explicit warning, network hosts continuously misled their audience about the election with baseless claims of voter fraud.

You can see all of the released filings and information from the case at Media Matters’ Fox Knew website. You can also track all of our posts about it here.

Matt Gertz analyzed Fox host Jeanine Pirro as a microcosm of Fox’s corruption surrounding the election. Incredibly, the filings from the case reveal that Fox internally identified falsehoods in a pre-taped monologue – which Pirro refused to change and Fox aired with the falsehoods still intact. And soon after, the network promoted her even though her producer had warned that Pirro should “never be on live television.” It’s a stunning insight into the network’s duplicity and corruption.

Dominion’s defamation suit against Fox is scheduled to begin in just over a week. This week, the judge in the case ruled that both Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch and Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch would be forced to testify. Both men were deeply involved in the network’s election coverage.

Fox Corp. is trying to sell the majority of advertising space on Fox News and other properties with a pitch to buyers that features some of the top talent who pushed lies about the election. While advertising is certainly important, Fox actually makes most of its money through cable fees. Sign up at No Fox Fee to stay alert for when Fox tries to jack up your cable bill.

Lastly, it's very clear this lawsuit is leaving a mark: Fox's stock was even downgraded over it.

Conservative media had a predictable meltdown over Trump’s arraignment

On Tuesday, former President Donald Trump was arraigned on 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York. Right-wing media quickly spun outlandish conspiracy theories, myths, and misinformation. Though it’s not at all clear that conservative media hosts understand the case against Trump, that is not stopping them from calling for retribution.

Conservatives aggressively attacked Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, even calling for his indictment. They called for revenge against Democrats, including calls for Trump to prosecute President Joe Biden should the indicted former president be elected in 2024. In mob-like behavior, media figures (including Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump) shared content that attacked the daughter of the judge in the case. Through all the apocalyptic garment rending, though, right-wing media have uniformly held to their hagiographic defenses of Trump.

While Fox brags about how many people tuned in to watch Trump's lie-filled speech that the network aired in full, more mainstream media outlets are also trying to cash in. In a spectacle reminiscent of the infamous empty podium footage from the 2016 campaign, CNN and MSNBC aired near constant b-roll of Trump’s plane and motorcade during his trip to New York for his arraignment

This week in stupid

• Newsmax host Greg Kelly said Trump looked “even more presidential” in police custody.
• Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy claimed appliance efficiency regulations are a “war on women.”
• “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander said he’s “not totally convinced that vehicles actually need gas."
• In what Fox seemingly considers an important story, the team working on the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid has changed some words in the song Kiss the Girl. The changes are meant to ensure that the idea of consent is represented in the children's movie, a move that Fox has lamented as wokeness.

This week in scary 

• A Tucker Carlson guest said secession is necessary because Democrats are “so unclean” and are “mutilating kids.”

Excuse me?

• Dennis Prager said that “Donald Trump has as good a chance at a fair trial in Manhattan as a Black did in the — in the South in 1900.”
• BlazeTV host Steve Deace’s producer said that “there’s no such thing as homosexual rights.”
• Charlie Kirk said, “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.”

In case you missed it

• After liberal Judge Janet Protasiewicz beat her conservative opponent in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, Charlie Kirk said the quiet part out loud, claiming that the election result “decreases our chance to be able to win the White House in 2024.” Kirk, along with his Turning Point USA, had aggressively boosted the conservative candidate Daniel Kelly.
• Conservative pundits were quick to praise Tennessee Republicans for expelling two Black Democratic members, Rep. Justin Pearson and Rep. Justin Jones, from the statehouse.
• Candace Owens said the existence of trans people is “worse than Jim Crow laws,”
• Fox’s Mark Levin said classified documents are “safer at Mar-a-Lago” than “at the National Archives.”
• Tucker Carlson said it’s “shocking” that “people put up” with “endless attacks on the whites.”
• Far-right extremists are happy that anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is reportedly planning to run for president as a Democrat. Steve Bannon urged him to run, and climate denier Marc Morano tweeted his support as well. Kennedy has a number of links to far-right and QAnon extremists.

Further reading

• On April 2, CBS 60 Minutes anchor Lesley Stahl interviewed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA), and it was a complete failure of journalistic integrity.
• A bombshell ProPublica investigation found that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas “accepted luxury trips virtually every year” from a billionaire GOP megadonor “without disclosing them”; that megadonor also has interests before the court. Fox host Laura Ingraham, who once clerked for Thomas, defended his actions on her show.
• Frederick County, Maryland, Sheriff Charles “Chuck” Jenkins, a regular Fox News guest, has been indicted for conspiracy and false statements in an illegal machine gun acquisition scheme allegedly carried out over more than six years. During that time, Jenkins appeared on Fox News to repeatedly demonize immigrants, paint them as criminals, and call for harsher penalties to be levied against them.
• Charlie Kirk’s rhetoric has gotten noticeably more extreme and retaliatory over the past few weeks.
• Anti-civil rights activist Christopher Rufo has extensive ties to a prominent Christian nationalist think tank.
• As access to the abortion pill mifepristone is likely to be revoked (due to a Trump-appointed judge), anti-choice advocates are spreading misinformation about a safe alternative.
• Mainstream outlets treated Eric Adams’ mayoral win in New York City as a national trend signaling the left’s demise. Progressive Brandon Johnson’s win in Chicago this week was covered simply as a local story. For their part, right-wing media are simply melting down.