Elections

People who remember Fox News host Tucker Carlson as a bow-tied creature of establishment Washington often wonder what happened to him. Twenty years ago, he was a preppy Beltway habitué and impishly libertarian magazine writer; a wryly affectionate account of Al Sharpton in Liberia that he wrote for Esquire was nominated for a National Magazine Award. Now he’s the sneering, conspiracy-obsessed host of what The New York Times called possibly “the most racist show in the history of cable news.”As The Times wrote, there’s a long-running debate about “whether Mr. Carlson’s show is merely lucrative theater or an expression of his true values.” By most accounts, Carlson shares Donald Trump’s deep cultural resentments. But as an explosive new court filing in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox News demonstrates, in trying to explain why Carlson and many of his colleagues do what they do, we shouldn’t underestimate simple greed.The brief, a motion for summary judgment in a case stemming from Fox’s egregiously false claims of Dominion-abetted election fraud, offers a portrait of extravagant cynicism. It reveals how obsessed Carlson and other leading Fox News figures were with audience share, and their fear of being outflanked by even further-right outlets like Newsmax.“It’s remarkable how weak ratings make good journalists do bad things,” Bill Sammon, a Fox senior vice president until 2021, is quoted as saying. It’s a line that would fall flat on “Succession” because it’s too absurdly on the nose.As the Dominion filing lays out, there was panic at Fox News over viewer backlash to the network correctly calling Arizona for Joe Biden on election night. Despite its accuracy, the call was viewed, internally, as a catastrophe.“Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we’ve lost with our audience?” Carlson texted his producer. He added, “An alternative like Newsmax could be devastating to us.” Sean Hannity, in an exchange with fellow hosts Carlson and Laura Ingraham, fretted about the “incalculable” damage the Arizona projection did to the Fox News brand and worried about a competitor emerging: “Serious $$ with serious distribution could be a real problem.”Hyping false claims about election fraud was a way for Fox to win its audience back. While the Arizona call was “damaging,” Fox News C.E.O. Suzanne Scott wrote in a text to Fox executive Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s son, “We will highlight our stars and plant flags letting the viewers know we hear them and respect them.”When Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich fact-checked Trump’s wild claims about Dominion on Twitter, Carlson was enraged and tried to get her fired. “It needs to stop immediately, like tonight,” he texted Hannity. “It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.” (Heinrich kept her job but deleted the tweet.)The network knew, of course, that Trump’s lawyer Sidney Powell, a chief promoter of Dominion conspiracy theories, was a delusional fantasist. The legal brief reveals that some of her claims about Dominion were based on an email Powell had received from someone who claimed to be capable of “time travel in a semiconscious state.” On Nov. 18, 2020, Carlson told Ingraham: “Sidney Powell is lying by the way. Caught her. It’s insane.” Ingraham wrote back that Powell was a “complete nut.”But according to the Dominion brief, an analysis by Ron Mitchell, the senior vice president for prime-time programming and analytics, found that “Fox viewers were switching the channel specifically to watch Sidney Powell as a guest” on Newsmax. A few days after this analysis, Powell was a guest on Hannity’s show.At one point, Carlson did express skepticism of Powell on-air, noting on Nov. 19 that she had never produced evidence for her claims. “Maybe Sidney Powell will come forward soon with details on exactly how this happened, and precisely who did it,” he said, adding, “We are certainly hopeful that she will.”Even this gentle note of doubt produced viewer pushback, though most of a message about it from Fox executive Raj Shah is redacted. Afterward, Carlson seems to have given up trying to steer his audience away from total credulity about Trump’s stolen election claims, even though he privately called Trump a “demonic force.” On Jan. 26, Carlson hosted MyPillow founder Mike Lindell on his show and let him sound off about Dominion without resistance. In fairness, Carlson may have had a motive for indulging Lindell besides grubbing for ratings. As Media Matters for America pointed out, MyPillow at the time was Carlson’s single biggest advertiser.It’s certainly true that all cable news shows program with ratings in mind. MSNBC — where, full disclosure, I’m a contributor — pays much closer attention to various Trump scandals than to climate change or the war in Ukraine because it’s catering to its audience. But there is no analogue for the way Fox treats its viewers.In addition to MSNBC, in the past I’ve appeared a number of times on CNN. Sometimes hosts are a little saltier when the cameras aren’t rolling, but I don’t recall ever hearing any daylight between the views they express on-air and off. Fox News is unique in its bad faith.“Respecting this audience whether we agree or not is critical,” Hannity texted on Nov. 24. It’s a version of respect indistinguishable from contempt.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

The released excerpts from the special grand jury’s report suggest that the jurors probably recommended indictments on more charges than just perjury.On Thursday, after a lengthy criminal investigation by a Georgia special grand jury into allegations of election interference by Donald J. Trump and his allies, a judge released excerpts from a report drafted by the panel. The grand jury’s recommendations were redacted, and little new information was released, but a close reading, together with earlier reporting, offers some insights into where the case is headed. Here are some key takeaways.Legal experts say Mr. Trump remains in real jeopardy in Georgia.In a post on Truth Social on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Trump thanked the special grand jury for its “Patriotism & Courage.“Total exoneration,” he added. “The USA is very proud of you!!!”In fact, the portions of the grand jury’s report that included recommendations on possible indictments were not revealed. Many legal experts continue to see two significant areas of exposure for Mr. Trump.The first is his direct involvement in recruiting a slate of alternative presidential electors after the 2020 election, even after Georgia’s results were recertified by the state’s Republican leadership. The second are the telephone calls he made to pressure state officials after the election, including one in which Mr. Trump told Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, that he needed to “find” 11,780 votes, one more than President Biden’s margin of victory in the state.“Even before we got these initial statements from the special grand jury, we knew Trump was in deep criminal peril because of the mountain of evidence that has accumulated that he violated Georgia statutes,” said Norman Eisen, a lawyer who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment and trial of Mr. Trump, and a co-author of a lengthy Brookings Institution report on the Fulton County investigation.The jurors did make recommendations about indictments.The special grand jury noted in its report that it had voted on indictment recommendations, though the released excerpts do not reveal what the results of those votes were. The jurors wrote that they had “set forth for the Court our recommendations on indictments and relevant statutes.” (A special grand jury cannot bring indictments, but can make recommendations to the district attorney.)In ordering that only portions of the report be released, with all names redacted, the judge handling the case may have provided a clue to the grand jury’s recommendations. The judge, Robert C.I. McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court, said he was limiting the extent of the release because the grand jury inquiry, by its nature, allowed for only “very limited due process” for potential defendants. The judge’s stance would have been unlikely if the grand jury had not recommended indictments.Understand Georgia’s Investigation of Election InterferenceCard 1 of 5A legal threat to Trump. More

Amid political change in Scotland, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak went to Belfast to work on a trade agreement with the European Union.LONDON — Rarely have Britain’s politics looked so shambolic: a revolving door of prime ministers in Downing Street; the sudden resignation of Scotland’s formidable longtime leader, Nicola Sturgeon; and the lack of a functioning government in Northern Ireland. Yet beyond the disarray, there are the glimmerings of a path to a more stable United Kingdom.On Friday, the current prime minister, Rishi Sunak, met with pro-unionist leaders in Northern Ireland’s capital, Belfast, to enlist their support for an agreement with the European Union on post-Brexit trade arrangements in the territory. That has buoyed hopes that Mr. Sunak could present the deal to the British Parliament as early as next week.If the prime minister is able to secure a deal — a big if — it could open the door to restoring the power-sharing government in Belfast. And that, in turn, could quiet the voices of those calling for Northern Ireland to break away from Britain and unite with the Irish Republic.“If the protocol can be made to work, it would be very good for Northern Ireland,” said Bobby McDonagh, who served as Ireland’s ambassador to Britain, referring to the Northern Ireland Protocol, which governs trade between the North and the E.U. “If it doesn’t work, and if there were some sort of border erected on the island of Ireland, nothing could do more to reignite a debate about Irish unity.”In Scotland, the departure of Ms. Sturgeon, a clarion voice for Scottish independence, has left that movement at loose ends. Not only does it lack a leader as commanding as her, but it also lacks a clear path to independence — one of the reasons that Ms. Sturgeon chose to step down after eight years as first minister.Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s long-serving leader, leaving on Wednesday after announcing that she will step down.Pool photo by Jane BarlowNobody expects the Scots to give up their dreams of independence, just as nobody expects Irish nationalists to give up their goal of a united Ireland. But taken together, Mr. Sunak’s high-stakes diplomacy with Belfast and Brussels, and Ms. Sturgeon’s abrupt departure in Edinburgh, could slow the centrifugal forces that have threatened to unravel the United Kingdom in the aftermath of Brexit.“Sunak is trying to put the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle back together,” Mr. McDonagh said. “He’s doing his best to restore some sanity to British politics, but we don’t know whether he’ll have the strength to carry this through.”Some of it is out of his hands: the Scottish National Party will choose a new leader in the coming weeks, and the charisma and leadership abilities of that person will be critical to the fate of the independence movement. On Northern Ireland, Mr. Sunak faces obstacles from pro-unionist leaders in Belfast, who seek to maintain political links with Britain, as well as from his own lawmakers in London. The Democratic Unionist Party, or D.U.P., is demanding that Britain effectively scrap the protocol, which gives the North hybrid trade status as a part of the United Kingdom that has an open border with the Irish Republic, a member of the European Union.An even bigger threat could come from the pro-Brexit wing of the Conservative Party. Some of those lawmakers have threatened to oppose any agreement that would leave the European Court of Justice with jurisdiction over Northern Ireland. They argue that the court, which guarantees that European law is applied in all member states, infringes British sovereignty.Though details of a potential deal remain closely guarded, analysts and diplomats said they appeared to distance, if not eliminate, the role of the European court by prioritizing other mechanisms to resolve legal disputes.More tangibly, it seeks to remove paperwork and other barriers to goods flowing from mainland Britain to Northern Ireland. Unionists complain that these barriers drive a wedge between them and the rest of the United Kingdom. Under the terms being discussed, food and other goods destined for shelves in the North would pass through a “green lane,” requiring no customs declarations.Whether these compromises would pass muster with the unionists was still unclear. On Friday, after meeting with Mr. Sunak, the leader of the Democratic Unionists, Jeffrey Donaldson, said, “progress has been made across a range of areas, but there are still some areas where further work is required.”The leader of the Democratic Unionists, Jeffrey Donaldson, spoke in Belfast on Friday.Lorraine O’Sullivan/ReutersEven if the unionists accept the deal, analysts cautioned that they might not agree to go back into Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government. That is in part because Sinn Fein, the Irish nationalist party, is now the biggest party in the North’s assembly, which gives it the right to name a first minister.The creation of that government was a key achievement of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended decades of sectarian bloodshed in Northern Ireland. Restoring the government, experts said, was important not just to improve daily life in the North but also to prevent sectarian tensions from resurfacing.“When the government institutions don’t function, you see a rise in support for Irish unification,” said Katy Hayward, a professor of politics at Queen’s University in Belfast. “When they are functioning, you see a decline in support.”Beyond Northern Ireland’s domestic politics, Professor Hayward said Mr. Sunak’s effort to reset Britain’s relationship with the European Union was critical to tamping down separatist passions in both the North and Scotland.The Scottish independence movement was galvanized by Brexit, which was unpopular in Scotland as well as in Northern Ireland. The regular tiffs between Mr. Sunak’s predecessor, Boris Johnson, and European leaders like President Emmanuel Macron of France played better in England than they did in Scotland or Northern Ireland.“Those tensions create a space that unionists and nationalists can fill,” Professor Hayward said. “If it’s possible to bring back certainly and stability in the U.K.-E.U. relationship, that will help calm the waters within the U.K.”Mr. Sunak plans a weekend diplomatic blitz to seal the deal with Brussels. He is scheduled to meet with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, and other European leaders at the Munich security conference. He may also meet there with Vice President Kamala Harris and speak by phone with President Biden, who has urged Britain to settle its differences with the European Union.Mr. Biden hopes to visit Belfast in April to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. A stopover in London could hinge on whether Mr. Sunak is able to secure an agreement by then. Mr. Sunak told Mr. Biden last November that his goal was to deliver it before the anniversary.For Mr. Sunak, it is perhaps his stiffest test yet. Having replaced the scandal-scarred Mr. Johnson and the ill-fated Liz Truss, he has a tenuous grip over a divided party. Among the fears of his allies is an 11th-hour intervention by Mr. Johnson, who made the Brexit deal that Mr. Sunak is trying to overhaul and could mobilize opponents in London and Belfast.“If he gets an agreement on the protocol, we’re going to be over the hump with the E.U. but not necessarily with the D.U.P.,” said Jonathan Powell, who was involved in negotiating the Good Friday Agreement as chief of staff to Prime Minister Tony Blair.Regardless, Mr. Powell said, “We’re approaching a period of transition in British politics. You get these inflection points when things change a lot.” More

Mr. Scott, the only Black Republican senator, has many political assets. What he lacks is an obvious ability to win over voters who have embraced a Trumpian brand of us-versus-them divisiveness.CHARLESTON, S.C. — Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, openly eyeing a pathbreaking run for the Republican presidential nomination, came home Thursday night to the city that started the Civil War to test out themes of unity and forgiveness aimed at the current war in his party — and the divisions roiling the nation at large.The ultimate question is whether Republican voters who embraced Donald J. Trump’s brand of us-versus-them divisiveness are ready for the themes that Mr. Scott is selling.His speech Thursday to the Charleston County Republican Party could have been the kind of routine dinner address that all elected officials give, this one honoring Black History Month at a local college. But the television crews and reporters piled on to the risers at The Citadel military college’s alumni center were there to watch what amounted to a soft opening for a White House run by Mr. Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate. And it came only a day after a festive kickoff event for the presidential campaign of Mr. Scott’s friend, political benefactor and fellow South Carolinian, Nikki Haley.“If you want to understand America, you need to start in Charleston; you need to understand and appreciate the devastation brought upon African Americans,” Mr. Scott counseled. “But if you stop at our original sin, you have not started the story of America, because the story of America is not defined by our original sin. The story of America is defined by our redemption.”Mr. Scott has obvious political assets to bring to a potentially crowded field: a message of optimism, a disposition that has made him personally popular even with his political opponents, and the historic nature of his potential nomination.But those assets could prove to be a liability in today’s Republican primary environment, where voters rail against what they see as unfair favoritism toward people of color and where activists may be more interested in anger than optimism. Even in his home state, the third in the Republican nomination process, it is not clear that his political approach is preferable to those of the two pugnacious Floridians expected to compete for the party’s standard, Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis.“I don’t see a path for Tim,” said Chip Felkel, a longtime Republican consultant in South Carolina and a critic of Mr. Trump. He said of the mood in the party, “We don’t have a lot of Republicans ready to sing ‘Kumbaya.’”Mr. Scott appears to understand that race is a major political issue at this fraught moment when the loudest voices in his party are disputing how Black history is taught, race consciousness and the once widely accepted notion that diversity should be a goal, not just happenstance. His own Senate record includes legislation to make lynching a federal hate crime and a major push for police reforms in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.Mr. Scott with a young attendee after she gave him an introduction at the dinner. Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesSo Mr. Scott has been approaching the issue from both sides, acknowledging the racism that confined his grandparents to the impoverished corners of the Jim Crow South and that still sends him routinely to the shoulders of the road for traffic stops. But he also says, invariably with a smile, that the nation is not racist. “There is a way for us to unify this country around basic principles that lead us forward and not backward, but we have to quit buying the lie that this is the worst time in American history,” he said on Thursday. “Only if American history started today can that be true.”Which Republicans Are Eyeing the 2024 Presidential Election?Card 1 of 6The G.O.P. primary begins. More

“We find by unanimous vote that no widespread fraud took place in the Georgia 2020 presidential election that could result in overturning that election.” With those words, a Fulton County special grand jury’s report, part of which was released Thursday, repudiated Donald Trump’s assault on our democracy.The excerpts from the report did not explicitly offer new detail on a potential indictment of Mr. Trump or any other individual. But they suggest that, combined with everything else we know, Mr. Trump may very well be headed for charges in Georgia.We need to prepare for a first in our 246-year history as a nation: The possible criminal prosecution of a former president.If Mr. Trump is charged, it will be difficult and at times even perilous for American democracy — but it is necessary to deter him and others from future attempted coups.Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, may present the case as a simple and streamlined one or in a more sweeping fashion. Success is more likely assured in the simpler approach, but the fact that the redacted report has eight sections suggests a broader approach is conceivable. In either event, we must all prepare ourselves for what could be years of drama, with the pretrial, trial and appeal likely dominating the coming election season.Ms. Willis opened her investigation shortly after Mr. Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, demand that the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, “find 11,780 votes.” The second impeachment of Mr. Trump and the Jan. 6 committee hearings developed additional evidence about that request for fake votes and Mr. Trump and allies pushing fake electors in Georgia and nationally. There is now abundant evidence suggesting he violated Georgia statutes, like those criminalizing the solicitation of election fraud.The parts of the special grand jury’s report revealed on Thursday only reinforce Mr. Trump’s risk of prosecution. The statement that the grand jurors found “no widespread fraud” in the presidential election eliminates Mr. Trump’s assertion that voter fraud justified his pushing state election officials. We also know that the grand jurors voted defendant by defendant and juror by juror, and set forth their recommendations on indictments and relevant statutes over seven (currently redacted) sections. The likelihood that they did that and cleared everyone is very low. And the fact that the grand jurors felt so strongly about the issues that they insisted on writing the recommendations themselves, as they emphasize, further suggests a grave purpose.Also notable is the grand jury’s recommendation of indictments, “where the evidence is compelling,” for perjury that may have been committed by one or more witnesses. It seems unlikely that Ms. Willis will let that pass.She will now decide the next steps of the case. Her statement that charging decisions were imminent came more than three weeks ago. If she does indict Mr. Trump, the two likely paths that she might take focus on the fake electoral slates and Mr. Trump’s call to Mr. Raffensperger. One is a narrower case that would likely take weeks to try; the other is a broader case that would likely take months.Narrow charges could include the Georgia felonies of solicitation of election fraud in the first degree and related general crimes like conspiracy to commit election fraud, specifically focusing on events and people who have a strong nexus with Georgia. In addition to Mr. Trump, that might include others who had direct contacts with Georgia, like his former chief of staff Mark Meadows and his attorneys John C. Eastman and Rudolph W. Giuliani (who already received a “target” notification from Ms. Willis warning him that he may be charged). Such a case would focus on activities around the execution of the fake electoral slates on Dec. 14, 2020, followed by the conversation with Mr. Raffensperger on Jan. 2, rooting it in Georgia and avoiding events nationally except to the extent absolutely necessary.Or Ms. Willis could charge the case more broadly, adding sweeping state Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, charges that could still include the impact of the conduct in Georgia but bring in more of a nationwide conspiracy. This would look more like the Jan. 6 investigation, albeit with a strong Georgia flavor. It could additionally include those who appeared to have lesser contact with Georgia but were part of national efforts including the state, like the Trump campaign attorney Kenneth Chesebro and the Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark.A more narrow case might make slightly more sense: Given the extraordinary circumstances around it, Ms. Willis will surely have her hands full. And it will feature a likely lead defendant who has demonstrated his propensity for legal circuses — coming in the midst of a heated political season no less.That said, Ms. Willis has a proven propensity for bringing and winning RICO cases. And as we have learned in our criminal trial work, sometimes juries are more responsive to grander narratives that command their attention — and outrage.Whether it’s simple or broad, if a case is opened, one thing is nearly certain: It’s going to take a while, probably the better part of the next two years, and perhaps longer. We would surely see a flurry of legal filings from Mr. Trump, which while often meritless nevertheless take time. Here the battle would likely be waged around pretrial motions and appeals by Mr. Trump arguing, as he has done in other cases, that he was acting in his official presidential capacity and so is immune.That challenge, though not persuasive at all in our view, will almost certainly delay a trial by months. Other likely sallies are that the case should be removed to federal court (it shouldn’t); that he relied on the advice of counsel in good faith (he didn’t); or that his action was protected by the First Amendment (it wasn’t).Even if the courts work at the relatively rapid pace of other high-profile presidential cases, we would still be talking about months of delay. In both U.S. v. Nixon and Thompson v. Trump, about three months were consumed from the first filing of the cases to the final rejection of presidential arguments by the U.S. Supreme Court. In this case, there would be more issues, which would be likely to require additional time. At the earliest, Ms. Willis would be looking at a trial toward the end of 2023. Even on that aggressive schedule, appeals would not be concluded until the end of 2024 or beyond.Needless to say, this would have a profound impact on the election season. It would feature a national conversation about what it means for a former president to be prosecuted, and it would no doubt have unexpected consequences.Still, the debate is worth having, and the risks are worth taking. The core American idea is that no one is above the law. If there is serious evidence of crimes, then a former president should face the same consequences as anyone else. If we do not hold accountable those who engage in this kind of misconduct, it will recur.It would be the trial of the 21st century, no doubt a long and bumpy ride — but a necessary one for American democracy.Norman Eisen was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment of Donald Trump. E. Danya Perry is a former federal prosecutor and New York State corruption investigator. Amy Lee Copeland, a former federal prosecutor, is a criminal defense and appellate attorney in Savannah, Ga.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

Carlson and Hannity among Fox hosts who didn’t believe election fraud claims – court filingsNumber of conservative political commentators expressed doubts about claims being aired on their network Hosts at Fox News did not believe the allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election that were being aired on their programmes by supporters of former president Donald Trump, according to court filings in a $1.6bn (£1.34bn) defamation lawsuit against the network.“Sidney Powell is lying” about having evidence for election fraud, Tucker Carlson wrote in a message on 16 November 2020, according to an excerpt from an exhibit that remains under seal.The internal communication was included in a redacted summary judgment brief filed on Thursday by attorneys for Dominion Voting Systems.Is Dominion’s $1.6bn defamation lawsuit a death blow for Murdoch and Fox News?Read moreCarlson also referred to Powell in a text as an “unguided missile” and “dangerous as hell”. Fellow host Laura Ingraham told Carlson that Powell was “a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy”, referring to the former New York mayor and Trump supporter Rudy Giuliani.Sean Hannity, meanwhile, said in a deposition “that whole narrative that Sidney was pushing, I did not believe it for one second”, according to Dominion’s filing.Dominion, which sells electronic voting hardware and software, is suing Fox News and parent company Fox Corporation. Dominion says some Fox News employees deliberately amplified false claims that Dominion had changed votes in the 2020 election, and that Fox provided a platform for guests to make false and defamatory statements.Attorneys for the cable news station argued in a counterclaim that the lawsuit was an assault on the first amendment. They said Dominion had advanced “novel defamation theories” and was seeking a “staggering” damage figure aimed at generating headlines, chilling protected speech and enriching Dominion’s private equity owner, Staple Street Capital Partners.“Dominion brought this lawsuit to punish FNN for reporting on one of the biggest stories of the day – allegations by the sitting president of the United States and his surrogates that the 2020 election was affected by fraud,” the counterclaim states. “The very fact of those allegations was newsworthy.”Fox attorneys also said Carlson repeatedly questioned Powell’s claims in his broadcasts. “When we kept pressing, she got angry and told us to stop contacting her,” Carlson told viewers on 19 November 2020.Fox attorneys say Dominion’s own public relations firm expressed scepticism in December 2020 as to whether the network’s coverage was defamatory. They also point to an email from just days before the election, in which Dominion’s director of product strategy and security complained that the company’s products were “just riddled with bugs”.In their counterclaim, Fox attorneys wrote that when voting technology companies denied the allegations being made by Trump and his surrogates, Fox News aired those denials, while some Fox News hosts offered protected opinion commentary about Trump’s allegations.Fox’s counterclaim is based on New York’s “anti-Slaap” law. Such laws are aimed at protecting people trying to exercise their first amendment rights from being intimidated by “strategic lawsuits against public participation”, or Slapps.“According to Dominion, FNN had a duty not to truthfully report the president’s allegations but to suppress them or denounce them as false,” Fox attorneys wrote. “Dominion is fundamentally mistaken. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press would be illusory if the prevailing side in a public controversy could sue the press for giving a forum to the losing side.”Fox attorneys warn that threatening the company with a $1.6bn judgment would cause other media outlets to think twice about what they report. They also say documents produced in the lawsuit show Dominion has not suffered any economic harm and do not indicate that it lost any customers as the result of Fox’s election coverage.A trial is set to begin in mid-April.TopicsFox NewsSean HannityFoxUS elections 2020Donald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

The comments, by Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and others, were released as part of a defamation suit against Fox News by Dominion Voter Systems.Newly disclosed messages and testimony from some of the biggest stars and most senior executives at Fox News revealed that they privately expressed disbelief about President Donald J. Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, even though the network continued to promote many of those lies on the air.The hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, as well as others at the company, repeatedly insulted and mocked Trump advisers, including Sidney Powell and Rudolph W. Giuliani, in text messages with each other in the weeks after the election, according to a legal filing on Thursday by Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion is suing Fox for defamation in a case that poses considerable financial and reputational risk for the country’s most-watched cable news network.“Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane,” Mr. Carlson wrote to Ms. Ingraham on Nov. 18, 2020.Ms. Ingraham responded: “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.”Mr. Carlson continued, “Our viewers are good people and they believe it,” he added, making clear that he did not.The messages also show that such doubts extended to the highest levels of the Fox Corporation, with Rupert Murdoch, its chairman, calling Mr. Trump’s voter fraud claims “really crazy stuff.”On one occasion, as Mr. Murdoch watched Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell on television, he told Suzanne Scott, chief executive of Fox News Media, “Terrible stuff damaging everybody, I fear.”Dominion’s brief depicts Ms. Scott, whom colleagues have described as sharply attuned to the sensibilities of the Fox audience, as being well aware that Mr. Trump’s claims were baseless. And when another Murdoch-owned property, The New York Post, published an editorial urging Mr. Trump to stop complaining that he had been cheated, Ms. Scott distributed it widely among her staff. Mr. Murdoch then thanked her for doing so, the brief says.The filing, in state court in Delaware, contains the most vivid and detailed picture yet of what went on behind the scenes at Fox News and its corporate parent in the days and weeks after the 2020 election, when the conservative cable network’s coverage took an abrupt turn.Fox News stunned the Trump campaign on election night by becoming the first news outlet to declare Joseph R. Biden Jr. the winner of Arizona — effectively projecting that he would become the next president. Then, as Fox’s ratings fell sharply after the election and the president refused to concede, many of the network’s most popular hosts and shows began promoting outlandish claims of a far-reaching voter fraud conspiracy involving Dominion machines to deny Mr. Trump a second term.What was disclosed on Thursday was not the full glimpse of Dominion’s case against Fox. The 192-page filing had multiple redactions that contain more revelations about deliberations inside the network. Fox has sought to keep much of the evidence against it under seal. The New York Times is challenging the legality of those redactions in court.More on Fox NewsDefamation Case: ​​Some of the biggest names at Fox News are being questioned in the $1.6 billion lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against the network. The suit could be one of the most consequential First Amendment cases in a generation.Merger Falls Through: Rupert Murdoch has halted his plans to combine News Corp and Fox Corporation, saying that a merger was “not optimal for shareholders.” The prospect had faced significant investor pushback.‘American Nationalist’: Tucker Carlson stoked white fear to conquer cable news. In the process, the TV host transformed Fox News and became former President Donald J. Trump’s heir.Empire of Influence: ​​A Times investigation looked at how the Murdochs, the family behind a global media empire that includes Fox News, have destabilized democracy on three continents.In its defense, which was also filed with the court on Thursday, Fox argued that by covering Mr. Trump’s fraud claims, the network was doing what any media organization would: reporting and commenting on a matter of undeniable newsworthiness. And it noted that many of its programs did not endorse the claim that the election was stolen.“In its coverage, Fox News fulfilled its commitment to inform fully and comment fairly,” its brief said. “Some hosts viewed the president’s claims skeptically; others viewed them hopefully; all recognized them as profoundly newsworthy.”The law shields journalists from liability if they report on false statements, but not if they promote them.Dominion said in its filing that not a single Fox witness had testified that he or she believed any of the allegations about Dominion.In a statement on Thursday, a Fox spokeswoman said, “Dominion has mischaracterized the record, cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law.”The brief shows that Fox News stars and executives were afraid of losing their audience, which started to defect to the conservative cable news alternatives Newsmax and OAN after Fox News called Arizona for Mr. Biden. And they seemed concerned with the impact that would have on the network’s profitability. On Nov. 12, in a text chain with Ms. Ingraham and Mr. Hannity, Mr. Carlson pointed to a tweet in which a Fox reporter, Jacqui Heinrich, fact-checked a tweet from Mr. Trump referring to Fox broadcasts and said there was no evidence of voter fraud from Dominion.“Please get her fired,” Mr. Carlson said. He added: “It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.” Ms. Heinrich had deleted her tweet by the next morning.The details offer more than dramatic vignettes from inside a news organization where internal disputes rarely spill into public view. They are pieces of evidence that a jury could use to weigh whether to find Fox liable for significant financial damages. Dominion is asking for $1.6 billion as compensation for the damage it says it suffered as Fox guests and hosts claimed, for instance, that Dominion’s voting machines had been designed to rig elections for the Venezuelan autocrat Hugo Chavez and were equipped with an algorithm that could erase votes from one candidate and give them to another.Fox Corporation has about $4 billion cash on hand, according to its latest quarterly earnings report.The burden in the case falls on Dominion to prove that Fox acted with actual malice — the longstanding legal standard that requires Dominion to prove that either Fox guests, hosts and executives knew what was being said on the air was false and allowed it anyway, or that people inside Fox were recklessly negligent in failing to check the accuracy of their coverage.That burden is difficult to meet, which is why defamation cases often fail. But legal experts said Dominion’s arguments were stronger than most.“This filing argues a fire hose of direct evidence of knowing falsity,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a professor of law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. “It gives a powerful preview of one of the best-supported claims of actual malice we have seen in any major-media case.”Many defamation suits are quickly dismissed because of the First Amendment’s broad free speech protections. If they do go forward, they are usually settled out of court to spare both sides the costly spectacle of a trial. The Dominion case has proceeded with a speed and scope that media experts have said is unusual.For eight months, Dominion lawyers have taken depositions from dozens of people at all levels of the network and its parent company. Mr. Murdoch was deposed last month. (Dominion’s brief was written before that deposition and does not reflect its contents, which remain under seal.) Mr. Hannity, one of the most popular prime-time hosts and a close Trump ally, has been deposed twice. And the personal phones and emails of many midlevel employees have been searched as part of the discovery process, which people inside the company have said has created an atmosphere of considerable unease.Both sides appear dug in and confident of victory. The judge has scheduled jury selection to begin in mid-April.Fox has contested how Dominion arrived at the amount it is seeking in damages, arguing that the company has vastly overstated its valuation and the reputational harm it suffered.In papers filed with the court on Thursday, lawyers for Fox called the $1.6 billion sum “a staggering figure that has no factual support and serves no apparent purpose other than to generate headlines, chill First Amendment-protected speech.”Fox’s lawyers added that Staple Street Capital Partners, the private equity firm that owns a majority share in Dominion, had paid about $38 million for its 76 percent stake in the company in 2018 and had never estimated Dominion’s financial value to be worth “anywhere near $1.6 billion.” Fox has made a counterclaim against Dominion seeking to recover all its costs associated with the lawsuit.Dominion’s goal, aside from convincing a jury that Fox knowingly spread lies, is to build a case that points straight to the top of the Fox media empire and its founding family, the Murdochs.“Fox knew,” the Dominion filing declares. “From the top down, Fox knew.”The brief cites senior executives and editors responsible for shaping Fox’s coverage behind the scenes who weren’t buying the election denial, either.“No reasonable person would have thought that,” said the network’s politics editor at the time, Chris Stirewalt, referring to the allegation that Dominion rigged the election. Bill Sammon, Fox’s managing editor in Washington, is quoted as saying, “It’s remarkable how weak ratings make good journalists do bad things.”Fox pushed out both journalists after the 2020 election.Ron Mitchell, a senior Fox executive who oversaw the Carlson, Hannity and Ingraham shows, texted privately with colleagues that the Dominion allegations were “the Bill Gates/microchip angle to voter fraud,” referring to false claims that microchips were injected into people who received Covid-19 vaccines.At times, Fox employees are described as disparaging one another. The president of the network, Jay Wallace, is quoted at one point criticizing the former Fox Business host Lou Dobbs — one of the biggest megaphones for Mr. Trump’s lies. “The North Koreans do a more nuanced show” than Mr. Dobbs, the brief says.On Nov. 6, 2020, three days after Election Day, as Mr. Biden pulled into the lead, Mr. Murdoch told Ms. Scott in an email that it was going to be “very hard to credibly cry foul everywhere,” and noted that “if Trump becomes a sore loser, we should watch Sean especially,” referring to Mr. Hannity. More

President Biden’s physical exam showed he is “fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency,” his physician said.WASHINGTON — President Biden is a “healthy, vigorous, 80-year-old,” his doctor said Thursday following a physical exam conducted just weeks before the oldest president in American history is expected to say he is running for a second term.Kevin C. O’Connor, the president’s longtime physician, said in a letter released by the White House that Mr. Biden’s health has not changed much since his last physical about 15 months ago.He said Mr. Biden is “fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency, to include those as chief executive, head of state and commander in chief.”Mr. Biden weighs 178 pounds with a body mass index of 24.1, according to the White House letter. His blood pressure was listed as 128/76 with a pulse of 69. The president had a total cholesterol level of 115, which Dr. O’Connor said was “remarkably low.” His high density lipoprotein level was 46 and his low density lipoprotein level was 58.In his letter, Dr. O’Connor said the president is 72 inches, or six feet, tall — slightly taller than he was at the end of 2021, when Dr. O’Connor reported that he was 5 feet, 11.65 inches tall. The doctor did not offer any explanation for the increase in stature.In the letter, Dr. O’Connor said that a “small lesion” on Mr. Biden’s chest had been excised on Thursday and would be sent for a biopsy to determine whether it is cancerous. Several small nonmelanoma skin cancers on Mr. Biden were removed several years ago.The assessment of Mr. Biden’s health comes as the president’s party grapples with the idea of nominating someone for a second term who, if he wins, will be 86 years old by the time he leaves office.Which Republicans Are Eyeing the 2024 Presidential Election?Card 1 of 6The G.O.P. primary begins. More