Dominion Has the Cure for Foxitis: $1.6 Billion Defamation Lawsuit

"Foxitis." That's what one lawyer claims prompted his client to join in the January 6 insurrection, after he was infected by Fox News shows pushing the false election narrative.

Foxitis doesn't just affect those who catch it; its ramifications stretch far and wide. Just look at what happened to Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems.

Founded as a Canadian company in 2003, Dominion Voting Systems was incorporated in the United States in 2009, when it set up offices in Denver. Today it’s one of the largest voting-equipment companies in the country, and during the November 2020 election provided machines and software to more than 1,300 jurisdictions, including 62 of Colorado's 64 counties.

But just days after that election, Fox and other outlets started pushing rumors about election fraud and pointing the finger at Dominion. In response, the company created a page on its website devoted to "Setting the Record Straight" rebuttals. But that didn't stop the stories, or the threats, and the company had to move out of its headquarters in LoDo. That didn't stop the stories or the threats, either, and Dominion soon filed defamation lawsuits against the Fox Corporation and some of the biggest pushers of election-fraud rumors, including Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and Mike "MyPillow" Lindell — all frequent guests on Fox News.

Dominion's $1.6 billion case against Fox is now set for trial in April, and last month the company's attorneys filed their motion for summary judgment. The 192-page filing is heavily redacted, but still full of evidence from depositions and discovery documents that Fox knew it was promoting falsehoods, including this exchange:

“Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane,” Tucker Carlson wrote to Laura Ingraham on November 18, 2020, referring to the Trump attorney pushing the voter fraud scenario.

Ingraham responded: “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.”

Carlson's reply: “Our viewers are good people and they believe it.”

And Carlson continued hosting Powell and fellow election deniers on his show, as did other Fox hosts. While the law shields journalists from liability if they unknowingly report on false statements, those protections are lost if they continue to promote statements that they know are false. And Dominion is out to prove that the country’s most popular news network did just that in a reckless pursuit of ratings.

More bombshells landed on Fox on February 27, these lobbed by Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of the media empire that owns Fox. In a deposition earlier this year, he acknowledged that several Fox hosts had "endorsed' baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald J. Trump. through voter fraud. "I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight," Murdoch said. He also admitted that he could have made sure that Powell and Giuliani did not appear on Fox shows, but "I didn't."

Asked if he thought Trump was wrong to say that the election had been stolen, Murdoch replied: “Yes. I mean, we thought everything was on the up-and-up.”

Trump's tweeted response on February 28: "Why is Rupert Murdoch throwing his anchors under the table, which also happens to be killing his case and infuriating his viewers, who will again be leaving in droves — they already are."

Fox offered its own response to the Murdoch deposition release: “Dominion’s lawsuit has always been more about what will generate headlines than what can withstand legal and factual scrutiny."

Fox accusing someone else of trying to generate headlines? Another clear sign of Foxitis: delusion.