The $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News is moving forward and the conservative cable giant may be in big trouble.
“The court says Fox knew exactly what it was doing when it defamed Dominion,” Bloomberg News columnist Tim O’Brien says, pointing to the outlet’s article.
“The court is describing clear evidence of malice. And that’s the ballgame in lawsuits like this.”
The article goes on to note that Delaware state court Judge Eric M. Davis wrote: “Fox possessed countervailing evidence of election fraud from the Department of Justice, election experts, and Dominion at the time it had been making its statements.”
“The fact that, despite this evidence, Fox continued to publish its allegations against Dominion, suggests Fox knew the allegations were probably false.”
It gets worse for Fox News.
The judge rejected the cable network’s “contention that statements” by its hosts “were opinion,” Deadline adds.
“He wrote that it was ‘reasonably conceivable that Fox and its personnel broadcasted mixed opinions that were based on either false or incomplete facts unknown to the reasonable viewer. Many of Fox’s reporters made broad election fraud statements that did not disclose their sources clearly, or clearly connect their statements to the election fraud litigations. Although Fox classifies its reporters’ remarks as commentary’ that used ‘loose and hyperbolic rhetoric’ for entertainment value, even loose and hyperbolic language can be actionable if it rests on false statements of fact undisclosed to viewers.'”