Donald Trump accuses Murdock of betrayal over defamation testimony
Donald Trump has criticised Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, for allegedly betraying the network’s hosts during recent legal testimony.
In a defamation lawsuit brought against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems, Murdoch conceded that some Fox hosts had endorsed baseless claims about voter fraud in the 2020 US presidential election.
Trump took to social media to accuse Murdoch of selling out his stars, claiming that this move was hurting Fox News’ case and alienating its viewers.
The former president also repeated his unsupported assertions of widespread ballot stuffing.
Dominion Voting Systems is seeking $1.6bn in damages from Fox News for airing false and damaging rumours about voter fraud.
Murdoch does not believe fraud lies
According to a legal filing on Monday, Rupert Murdoch stated in the Dominion case that he did not believe Donald Trump’s claims of mass voter fraud and that Fox News should have been more forceful in rejecting them.
Fox News has maintained that the commentary it aired falls under the constitutional right to free speech and that it was simply reporting on Trump’s allegations, not endorsing them.
Dominion’s lawsuit alleges that Fox News promoted the election fraud conspiracy theory due to concerns that conservative viewers were shifting to more pro-Trump media outlets.
The filings indicate that after Fox was the first to call the pivotal state of Arizona for Joe Biden, Murdoch received a call from Jared Kushner, who expressed dismay at the news, with Trump yelling in the background.
Murdoch told Kushner that the election outcome could not be changed because “the numbers are the numbers.” The filings suggest that Fox executives became worried about losing viewers to other channels, causing them to delay announcing Biden’s victory even as other networks did so.
Make Trump a ‘non person’
Mr Murdoch told his son and Fox Corporation chief executive Lachlan Murdoch in a private message: “We should and could have gone first but at least being second saves us a Trump explosion!”
Lachlan Murdoch responded: “I think good to be careful. Especially as we are still somewhat exposed on Arizona.”
Two days after the pro-Trump riot at Capitol Hill, Mr Murdoch emailed a Fox executive to say the network is “very busy pivoting”.
“We want to make Trump a non person,” his publicly released emails show.
The legal documents also revealed that Rupert Murdoch had taken personal steps to assist Donald Trump’s campaign against Joe Biden.
According to the court filing, “During Trump’s campaign, Rupert provided Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, with Fox confidential information about Biden’s ads, along with debate strategy.”
The filing did not specify what information about advertisements and debate strategy was shared with the Trump team. This alleged back-channel between Murdoch and the Trump campaign mirrored a similar controversy involving Hillary Clinton’s campaign during the 2016 presidential election. Leaked emails at the time showed that the leader of the Democratic National Committee had given advance notice of debate questions to the Clinton team, despite the event’s supposed impartiality.
What was the Capitol attack?
The Capitol attack, also known as the Capitol riot, was an event that occurred on January 6, 2021, when supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the United States Capitol building in Washington, D.C. during the certification process of the Electoral College votes to confirm Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election.
The rioters broke into the building, vandalised offices, and clashed with police officers, resulting in injuries and deaths. Members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence were evacuated or sheltered in place during the attack, which delayed the certification process for several hours.
The event was widely condemned by politicians from both major political parties and led to calls for Trump’s impeachment, which was subsequently carried out by the House of Representatives but ultimately acquitted by the Senate.
Many of the participants in the riot have been arrested and charged with various offences, including trespassing, assault, and conspiracy.