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Senator Graham Asks Supreme Court to Spare Him From Testifying in Georgia
Mr. Graham has been fighting a subpoena requiring him to appear before a special grand jury examining efforts to overturn former President Donald J. Trump’s election loss.ATLANTA — Senator Lindsey Graham asked the Supreme Court on Friday to stay a lower court’s order that would force him to testify before a special grand jury investigating efforts to overturn former President Donald J. Trump’s election loss in Georgia.The appeal by Mr. Graham, the South Carolina Republican and Trump confidant, is the latest in a protracted legal fight that he has been waging to defy a subpoena requiring him to answer questions before the special grand jury in Atlanta. Dozens of witnesses have already testified in the secret proceedings. Some, including Rudolph W. Giuliani and several other lawyers aligned with Mr. Trump, have tried unsuccessfully to avoid traveling to Atlanta to do so.But none has fought as long or as hard as Mr. Graham, who was subpoenaed in July. Soon after, he had the matter moved to the federal court system, arguing that forcing him to testify would raise constitutional issues. He pointed to the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause, which says that members of Congress cannot be questioned on matters pertaining to their legislative duties.On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta rejected the argument that the Speech and Debate Clause fully shielded Mr. Graham from having to testify. Mr. Graham responded with an emergency application on Friday, asking the Supreme Court for a stay while he appeals the ruling, and, if necessary, a ruling enjoining the special grand jury from questioning him until the appeal is resolved. The filing notes that Mr. Graham was issued a fresh subpoena on Friday compelling him to testify on Nov. 17.“Without a stay, Senator Lindsey Graham will soon be questioned by a local Georgia prosecutor and her ad hoc investigative body about his protected ‘Speech or Debate’ related to the 2020 election,” Mr. Graham’s lawyers wrote in the filing. “This will occur despite the Constitution’s command that Senators ‘shall not be questioned’ about ‘any Speech or Debate.’”Understand Georgia’s Investigation of Election InterferenceCard 1 of 5An immediate legal threat to Trump. More
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Lindsey Graham Must Testify in Georgia Elections Inquiry, Court Rules
A federal appeals court ruled that the senator must appear before the special grand jury that is investigating efforts to overturn Donald J. Trump’s election loss in Georgia.ATLANTA — A federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that Senator Lindsey Graham must appear before the special grand jury that is investigating efforts by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies to overturn Mr. Trump’s election loss in Georgia, although the court set limits on the kinds of questions Mr. Graham could be asked.The ruling means that Mr. Graham, at some date after the Nov. 8 midterm elections, will most likely have to travel to the Fulton County courthouse in downtown Atlanta to answer questions about phone calls he made to the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in the weeks after the 2020 election.In a court document issued this summer, Judge Robert C.I. McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court wrote that Mr. Graham, in the course of those phone calls, “questioned Secretary Raffensperger and his staff about re-examining certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump.”Neither Mr. Graham’s media representative nor his lawyers could be reached for comment on Thursday, and a spokesman for Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, declined to comment. But the six-page ruling, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, is a blow for Mr. Graham, the South Carolina Republican who transformed from a critic of Mr. Trump to an avid fan and his golfing partner over the course of Mr. Trump’s one term in office.Mr. Graham’s lawyers have argued that the senator made the calls to Mr. Raffensperger because he needed to “run down allegations of irregularities in Georgia” before he voted to certify that President Biden was the legitimate winner of the presidential election. The lawyers also said, among other things, that Mr. Graham was reviewing election-related issues in his role as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time.Understand Georgia’s Investigation of Election InterferenceCard 1 of 5An immediate legal threat to Trump. More
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Texas County Asks for U.S. Election Monitors as State Plans to Send Inspectors
Officials from Harris County in Texas on Thursday requested federal election monitors from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division after the State of Texas confirmed this week that it would send a contingent of election inspectors there during the midterms in November. The state’s move added a layer of scrutiny tied to an active examination of vote counts from 2020 that former President Donald J. Trump had sought.But that step quickly drew criticism from some officials in Harris, Texas’ most populous county, which includes Houston. They accused the state of meddling in the county’s election activities as early in-person voting is about to begin on Monday in Texas.Christian D. Menefee, the county’s attorney, said in a statement on Thursday that the state’s postelection review was politically driven and initiated by Mr. Trump. Still, he said, the county would cooperate with the inspectors.“We’re going to grant them the access the law requires, but we know state leaders in Austin cannot be trusted to be an honest broker in our elections, especially an attorney general who filed a lawsuit to overturn the 2020 presidential election,” Mr. Menefee said. “We cannot allow unwarranted disruptions in our election process to intimidate our election workers or erode voters’ trust in the election process.”The Justice Department did not immediately comment.The skirmish over the inspectors, who will arrive as votes are being counted, highlighted the recurring tensions between Republicans who hold power at the state level and officials in Harris County, which Democrats control and which Joseph R. Biden Jr. carried by 13 percentage points in 2020.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.Where the Election Stands: As Republicans appear to be gaining an edge with swing voters in the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress, here’s a look at the state of the races for the House and Senate.Biden’s Low Profile: President Biden’s decision not to attend big campaign rallies reflects a low approval rating that makes him unwelcome in some congressional districts and states.What Young Voters Think: Twelve Americans under 30, all living in swing states, told The Times about their political priorities, ranging from the highly personal to the universal.Debates Dwindle: Direct political engagement with voters is waning as candidates surround themselves with their supporters. Nowhere is the trend clearer than on the shrinking debate stage.The opposing forces previously clashed over the county’s expansion of voting access. Republicans in Texas enacted restrictions last year that included an end to balloting methods introduced in 2020 to make voting easier during the pandemic, like drive-through polling places and 24-hour voting. Both were popular in Harris County.In a letter detailing the inspection plan, Chad Ennis, the secretary of state’s forensic audit division director and a Republican, said on Tuesday that he still had concerns about some vote-count discrepancies from 2020 in Harris County.“These inspectors will perform randomized checks on election records, including tapes and chain of custody, and will observe the handling and counting of ballots and electronic media,” Mr. Ennis said. The term “chain of custody” referred, in this case, to records of who had access to the equipment and why several mobile ballot boxes were created for some locations but only certain ones were used.No credible evidence has emerged of widespread voter fraud from Texas’ 2020 postelection review, which Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, ordered to be conducted last year in the state’s four most populous counties at Mr. Trump’s urging. (Mr. Trump won in Texas with 52 percent of the vote in 2020.)Mr. Ennis also revealed on Tuesday that a task force from the Texas attorney general’s office would be dispatched to Harris County for the election to respond “at all times” to what he characterized as “legal issues” to be identified by the secretary of state, inspectors, poll watchers or voters. The specter of Election Day disputes is particularly heightened this year, with right-wing groups nationwide focused on challenging voters’ eligibility..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.In a statement on Wednesday, Judge Lina Hidalgo, a Democrat who is the top official in Harris County, assailed the state’s latest intervention.“The timing of this letter is — at best — suspicious,” Judge Hidalgo said. “It was sent just days before the start of early voting, potentially in an attempt to sabotage county efforts by sowing doubt in the elections process, or equally as bad, by opening the door to possible inappropriate state interference in Harris County’s elections.”Sam Taylor, a spokesman for the secretary of state, said in an email on Thursday that it was commonplace for inspectors to be dispatched to counties.“I want to add — because I’m sure you will get histrionic statements from so-called ‘civil rights’ organizations in Texas claiming ‘voter intimidation’— that during the primaries this year, the Harris County elections office initially misplaced approximately 10,000 mail-in ballots,” Mr. Taylor said.On Thursday after the county asked for federal monitors, Mr. Taylor released another statement, calling Harris County’s request “an attempt to mislead voters, members of the public, the press and the U.S. Department of Justice.” He added that the “Texas secretary of state’s office has sent election inspectors to Harris County every year, and have never before seen a request for the Department of Justice to ‘monitor the monitors.’”At the time of the error Mr. Taylor cited, county officials said that they had neglected to count the ballots but that they were not misplaced. The county hired a third-party consulting firm to examine its elections operation and make recommendations for improvements.In a statement this week, Clifford Tatum, the Harris County elections administrator, said he was focused on the task at hand.“As you know, we’re five days away from the start of early voting for the Nov. 8 election, and we are focused foremost on ensuring this election runs smoothly,” Mr. Tatum said.Mr. Tatum did not preside over the primary in March in Harris County. He was appointed in August after Isabel Longoria, who had held the post, resigned during the fallout over the primary. More
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Will Trump Get Indicted for Jan. 6?
More from our inbox:The Russia-Iran AllianceAn Unreal Foreign PolicyWhen I Realized That ‘Youth Is a Members-Only Club’A Good Divorce Damon Winter/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Has Told Americans Exactly Who He Is,” by Jesse Wegman (Opinion, Oct. 15):I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Wegman’s essay on Donald Trump and his blatant misdeeds, as so masterfully presented by the Jan. 6 committee. But we are approaching two years from Jan. 6 and there are still no indictments resulting from clear evidence of overwhelming criminal conduct by Mr. Trump.The mantra that no one is above the law rings hollow, as any normal person engaging in such Trumpian conduct would be wearing an orange suit by now. What more does the Justice Department or the Georgia prosecutor possibly need to take the action the evidence so clearly demands?I thought that when New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, filed a complaint accusing Donald Trump and his business of fraud that it would give courage to weak-kneed prosecutors to follow suit. Yet we wait and doubt whether the Teflon man will ever be brought to justice. Without such action, future leaders will feel no risk in taking actions that could destroy our democracy.We need indictments and justice, and we need them now!Richard GoetzDelray Beach, Fla.To the Editor:Jesse Wegman is correct to say that the Republican Party “is now infected from coast to coast with proudly ignorant conspiracymongers, wild-eyed election deniers and gun-toting maniacs.”About half of Americans are willing to allow that party to return to power. That half includes not just the unreachable Trump base but also millions of Americans who know that President Biden won the election, are probably opposed to political violence and likely support representative democracy. It is these Americans, who are not deep into delusions, lies and conspiracies, but nonetheless willing to hand power to a Republican Party that is, who currently pose the greatest threat to American democracy.Richard SeagerNew YorkTo the Editor:“Trump Has Told Americans Exactly Who He Is” is true today and has been true ever since he was first a candidate in the 2016 election. He has never shown, or aspired to be, more than what he has shown us right from the start. Sadly, many who follow him think this is fine, and perhaps the Jan. 6 committee’s report illuminating his actions may change some minds. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.As the very wise Maya Angelou once said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” I did, and I haven’t changed my mind.Cathy PutnamConcord, Mass.The Russia-Iran AllianceA drone believed to be Iranian-made nearing its target in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday.Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Deadly Message Sent by Drones: It’s Russia and Iran vs. the West” (front page, Oct. 18):Reprising the alliance that killed tens of thousands of noncombatants in Syria, Iran is now supplying Russia with drones used to attack Ukrainian cities and murder their inhabitants. The collaboration between these two vile dictatorships is based only on a mutual contempt for human life, abhorrence of freedom and hatred of the United States.What will it take for the Biden administration to break off its efforts to revive President Barack Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran, which would only delay, not prevent, the Islamic Republic’s emergence as a nuclear-armed power?Howard F. JaeckelNew YorkAn Unreal Foreign Policy Jhonn Zerpa/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTo the Editor:In “The U.S. Cannot Uphold the Fiction That Juan Guaidó Is the President of Venezuela,” (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, Oct. 8), William Neuman makes a blunt, but accurate, observation about U.S. policy in Venezuela: It’s incoherent and frankly detached from reality.But Venezuela is hardly an anomaly. U.S. foreign policy is often stuck in an immovable vortex, with inertia and an unwillingness to admit failure the defining features. The foreign policy establishment is either incapable of adapting to situations or is too confident of its ability to will things into existence.While it doesn’t hurt to be ambitious, it also doesn’t hurt to understand the limits of your power. The U.S. remains the most powerful nation in the world, with boundless economic potential and a military second to none, but other countries have independent agency, their own core interests and the resiliency to ensure that those interests are protected.The result is a wide divergence between the grand objectives the U.S. hopes to accomplish and the reality the U.S. operates in. Thus, we see Nicolás Maduro still running Venezuela, Bashar al-Assad sitting comfortably in the presidential palace in Syria and Kim Jong-un of North Korea the leader of a nuclear-weapons state.Instead of seeking to transform the world to its liking, a mountainous undertaking if there ever was one, the U.S. should work within the world that exists. Otherwise, failure is all but assured.Daniel R. DePetrisNew Rochelle, N.Y.The writer is a fellow at Defense Priorities, a foreign policy think tank based in Washington.When I Realized That ‘Youth Is a Members-Only Club’ Irving Browning/New-York Historical Society, via Bridgeman ImagesTo the Editor:Pamela Paul’s delightful Oct. 20 column, “Wait, Who Did You Say Is Middle-Aged?,” made me remember the afternoon I drove my two sons — teenagers then — home from school. A song blending Southern and garage rock was playing on the radio.“Mom, bet you don’t know who’s singing,” they dared.“That’s easy,” I said. “It’s Kings of Leon.”My older son gaped at his brother. “How could she know that?” Both were flummoxed, even offended, that I, a woman then in her 50s, got the answer right. Suddenly Kings of Leon, a band they followed, became uncool.I realized then and there that youth is a members-only club. And no amount of worldly knowledge — not even a gentle bribe of chocolate chip cookies, perhaps — could win me the price of admission.Reni RoxasEverett, Wash.A Good Divorce David HuangTo the Editor:Re “A Cure for the Existential Crisis of Married Motherhood,” by Amy Shearn (Sunday Opinion, Oct. 9):Ms. Shearn nails it in her tribute to happy divorced motherhood. The key to that freedom, I would assert, is a good divorce, meaning one that puts children first.It has been my mission since my own divorce 12 years ago to promote the concept of a good divorce, one that makes co-parenting the pinnacle of achievement for couples who must go through this difficult change.A good divorce means attending parent-teacher conferences with your ex, helping your child select a birthday gift for your ex-spouse, and relying on family and friends whenever possible to help ease the transition.My daughter, Grace, gave me the definition of a “good divorce” when she was only 8, saying, “A good divorce is when parents are nice to each other, like you and Daddy.”As Ms. Shearn acknowledges, some divorces are brutal, and for those parents a good divorce might not be realistic. For the rest of us, a good divorce is a goal divorced parents should aspire to, because it is an attainable outcome.Sarah ArmstrongSan FranciscoThe writer is vice president, global marketing operations, at Google and the author of “The Mom’s Guide to a Good Divorce: What to Think Through When Children Are Involved.” More
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Judge Says Trump Signed Statement With Data His Lawyers Told Him Was False
The determination came in a decision by a federal judge that John Eastman, a lawyer for the former president, had to turn more of his emails over to the House Jan. 6 committee.Former President Donald J. Trump signed a document swearing under oath that information in a Georgia lawsuit he filed challenging the results of the 2020 election was true even though his own lawyers had told him it was false, a federal judge wrote on Wednesday.The accusation came in a ruling by the judge, David O. Carter, ordering John Eastman, the conservative lawyer who strategized with the former president about overturning the election, to hand over 33 more emails to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Judge Carter, who serves with the Federal District Court for the Central District of California, determined that the emails contained possible evidence of criminal behavior.“The emails show that President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public,” Judge Carter wrote. He added in a footnote that the suit contained language saying Mr. Trump was relying on information provided to him by others.The committee has fought for months to get access to hundreds of Mr. Eastman’s emails, viewing him as the intellectual architect of plans to subvert the 2020 election, including Mr. Trump’s effort to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to block or delay congressional certification of the Electoral College results on Jan. 6, 2021. Repeatedly, the panel has argued that a “crime-fraud exception” pierces the typical attorney-client privilege that often protects communications between lawyers and clients.The emails in question, which were dated between Nov. 3, 2020, and Jan. 20, 2021, came from Mr. Eastman’s account at Chapman University, where he once served as a law school dean.Judge Carter wrote on Wednesday that the crime-fraud exception applied to a number of the emails related to Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman’s “efforts to delay or disrupt the Jan. 6 vote” and “their knowing misrepresentation of voter fraud numbers in Georgia when seeking to overturn the election results in federal court.”Judge Carter found four emails that “demonstrate an effort by President Trump and his attorneys to press false claims in federal court for the purpose of delaying the Jan. 6 vote.”In one of them, Mr. Trump’s lawyers advised him that simply having a challenge to the election pending in front of the Supreme Court could be enough to delay the final tally of Electoral College votes from Georgia.“This email,” Judge Carter wrote, “read in context with other documents in this review, make clear that President Trump filed certain lawsuits not to obtain legal relief, but to disrupt or delay the Jan. 6 congressional proceedings through the courts.”Another email was related to the lawsuit Mr. Trump and his lawyers filed in Fulton County, Ga., in December 2020, contending that thousands of votes had been improperly counted and citing specific numbers of dead people, felons and unregistered voters who had cast ballots.In one email ordered for release, Mr. Eastman made plain his view that Mr. Trump should not sign a document making specific claims about voter fraud in the county because his legal team had learned they were inaccurate.“Although the president signed a verification for [the state court filing] back on Dec. 1, he has since been made aware that some of the allegations (and evidence proffered by the experts) has been inaccurate,” Mr. Eastman wrote. “For him to sign a new verification with that knowledge (and incorporation by reference) would not be accurate.”But Mr. Trump did sign a new verification, on Dec. 31, 2020, after the suit was moved to federal court. The suit included a caveat that the voter fraud figures it used were to be relied upon “only to the extent” that “such information has been provided” to Mr. Trump’s legal team; the suit also stated that such data was subject to “amendment” or “adjustment.”The episode was the latest example of how Mr. Trump was repeatedly told that his claims of widespread voter fraud were false and often pressed forward with them anyway. His attorney general at the time, William P. Barr, informed him at least three times that his accusations about fraud were unfounded, as did other top officials at the Justice Department, the White House Counsel’s Office and the Trump campaign.Judge Carter’s ruling came as part of a federal lawsuit Mr. Eastman filed at the beginning of the year, seeking to bar the committee from obtaining his emails as part of its inquiry into Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.In a previous ruling, issued in March, Judge Carter offered a sweeping analysis of how Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman most likely committed felonies, including obstructing the work of Congress on Jan. 6 and conspiring to defraud the United States.Mr. Eastman has also been a focus of the Justice Department’s investigation into Jan. 6 and the months leading up to it.In June, federal agents seized Mr. Eastman’s phone as part of what appears to be a broad grand jury inquiry into Mr. Trump’s role in intersecting schemes to stay in power, including a plan to create fake slates of pro-Trump electors in states that were won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. A flurry of subpoenas issued by the grand jury, sitting in Washington, named Mr. Eastman and several other lawyers close to Mr. Trump as subjects of interest. More
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Text Message Slammed Georgia Senator for Questioning Election Results
The wife of Georgia’s secretary of state rebuked Kelly Loeffler, then a senator, after Ms. Loeffler said the secretary had mismanaged the 2020 election.Tricia Raffensperger, the wife of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of Georgia, has been open in the past about the death threats her family faced after former President Donald J. Trump and his allies pushed false claims about a rigged election in the state.But a newly surfaced text message from Ms. Raffensperger to Kelly Loeffler, a Republican senator of Georgia at the time, reveals that Ms. Raffensperger placed some of the blame for the death threats directly on Ms. Loeffler after the November 2020 presidential election. Ms. Raffensperger wrote Ms. Loeffler that she held her “personally responsible for anything that happens to any of my family.”The blistering text message, which questions Ms. Loeffler’s integrity and honor, was obtained by The New York Times; its authenticity was verified on Wednesday by Mike Hassinger, a spokesman for Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican. The message was an example of how tense relations grew, even within some Republican circles, as Mr. Trump and some of his supporters sought ways to reverse the election outcome in Georgia.Ms. Loeffler and her fellow Georgia senator at the time, David Perdue, sparked an intraparty showdown in the state on Nov. 9, 2020, six days after Election Day, when they issued a joint statement urging Mr. Raffensperger to resign. The statement called the presidential election in Georgia an “embarrassment,” and accused Mr. Raffensperger of “mismanagement and lack of transparency.”That same evening, Ms. Raffensperger, who tends to keep a low profile, messaged Ms. Loeffler.“I met you at the Christmas party in Washington DC,” the text said. “Never did I think you were the kind of person to unleash such hate and fury on someone in political office of the same party.”Understand Georgia’s Investigation of Election InterferenceCard 1 of 5An immediate legal threat to Trump. More
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Suzanne Scott’s Vision for Fox News Gets Tested in Court
Suzanne Scott remade Fox News Media into a lucrative consumer brand. But a $1.6 billion defamation suit against the company is testing her strategy and leadership.Before the committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection held its first prime-time hearing in June, Suzanne Scott, the chief executive of Fox News Media, called Lachlan Murdoch, her boss, to tell him how her network planned to broadcast the event.They wouldn’t, she said. The channel would stick with its usual prime-time lineup of Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. Mr. Murdoch, the executive chairman of Fox Corporation, was fine with Ms. Scott’s decision, according to an executive with knowledge of their conversation.As a business move, Ms. Scott’s call was the right one for Fox News in the end. As many viewers tuned in as they would on a regular night. And Fox still managed to best CNN in the ratings.The decision was true to form, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former colleagues. Since Ms. Scott took over the top job at Fox News in 2018, her colleagues said, she has managed from behind the scenes with a simple mantra: Respect Fox’s audience. Often, that involves sparing conservative viewers what they don’t want to hear — even when that means ignoring one of the biggest stories of the year.That strategy has helped Fox News succeed not just as the most-watched cable news network in the country but also as a multibillion-dollar consumer brand with a suite of businesses that, according to a recent company promo for one product, offers fans “The World According to Fox.” In addition to the Fox News and Fox Business cable channels, Ms. Scott has introduced Fox News Books, a publisher of meditations on Christianity; Fox Nation, a $5.99-per-month streaming service that produces a reboot of “Cops” and an original special from Mr. Carlson, “The End of Men,” that purports to explore a nationwide decline in testosterone rates; and Fox Weather, a new app and cable channel.Ms. Scott told her boss, Lachlan Murdoch, right, that the network wouldn’t broadcast the first Jan. 6 prime-time hearing in June. Mr. Murdoch is the son of Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of News Corp and Fox.Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesBut Ms. Scott’s Fox News — a sanctuary for conservatives where few unpleasant facts intrude and political misinformation has spread — also looms large in a case that threatens Fox’s business, and possibly Ms. Scott herself. She has emerged as one of the central figures in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox by Dominion Voting Systems, in which the voting company accuses Fox executives of juicing ratings and profits by repeatedly airing false information about Dominion machines siphoning votes away from former President Donald J. Trump.According to several people closely involved in the case, lawyers for Dominion are expected to depose her soon. A judge has granted Dominion access to her emails and text messages from the period after the 2020 election when Fox anchors and guests amplified some of the most outrageous falsehoods about Dominion and its supposed role in a plot to steal the election.So far, those messages contained at least one instance in which Ms. Scott expressed skepticism about the dubious claims of voter fraud that her network had been promoting, a recent court proceeding revealed. That kind of evidence is what Dominion hopes will ultimately convince a jury that Fox broadcast information it knew to be false, which would leave the company on the hook for significant damages.People who have heard Ms. Scott speak in meetings say she has been critical of Mr. Trump’s election denial claims, though she mostly keeps her personal politics private. (She is registered as unaffiliated.) One colleague recalled that in a meeting shortly after the 2020 election, Ms. Scott seemed in disbelief as she described how people she considered otherwise serious and rational thought there was any chance Mr. Trump could legitimately stop President Biden’s inauguration.What to Know About the Trump InvestigationsCard 1 of 6Numerous inquiries. More
