Fired Fox News producer reveals new evidence in Dominion’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit

18 April 2023

Fox News is not only facing a $1.6 billion lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems — it is also facing a lawsuit from a former producer, Abby Grossberg, who was fired in March and alleges that attorneys for the right-wing cable news outlet tried to coerce her into giving misleading testimony in the Dominion case.

Grossberg, who joined Fox News in 2019 as a producer for host Maria Bartiromo and went on to work for Tucker Carlson, has had a lot of damning things to say about her former colleagues. Now, according to NBC News reporter Jane C. Timm, Grossberg says she has found new evidence that is relevant to Dominion's case.

Grossberg, Timm reports in an article published on April 17, "alleged in a new sworn statement obtained by NBC News that Fox lawyers ignored repeated reminders about an additional cell phone in her possession and did not search it during court-ordered discovery."

Discovery, in the United States' court system, is the process in which opposing sides in a case are required to share evidence.

According to Timm, "In the statement, Grossberg said she repeatedly told Fox lawyers that she had an inoperable company-issued cell phone that she used during 2020 election coverage. Fox lawyers told her to hang on to the device but never searched it or copied her files, as they did with her other phones, according to the statement."

Fox News has said that Grossberg was fired in March for divulging privileged information, but Grossberg has described the firing as an act of retaliation and alleged that Fox News tried to make her the scapegoat in the Dominion case. Grossberg has also alleged that at Fox News, she encountered a culture of rampant sexism during meetings.

In late March, Grossberg told NBC News, "They're a big corporate machine that destroys people. I sat in those meetings. I heard them laugh about tearing apart politicians. Now, I know that in those meetings, they're talking about me."

Timm reports that in a "new affidavit," Grossberg "said a forensic expert recently pulled two recordings off the broken phone that she recorded using an app called Otter, which simultaneously records and creates text transcriptions of audio files."

According to Timm, "The recordings, which she details in the affidavit and audio of which was shared with NBC News, are of phone interviews she participated in with Bartiromo: one with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and another with two sources who claimed to know about Dominion voter fraud."

Dominion is suing Fox News and others for promoting, in late 2020 and early 2021, the false conspiracy theory that Dominion's voting equipment was used to help now-President Joe Biden steal the 2020 presidential election from then-President Donald Trump. The trial in Dominion's case is scheduled to begin in a Delaware courtroom on Tuesday, April 18, and Dominion's evidence includes e-mails and text messages showing that Fox News hosts didn't believe the false claims about Dominion but promoted them on the air anyway.

Grossberg has been subpoenaed in a separate defamation lawsuit filed against Fox News by Smartmatic, a Dominion competitor that also specializes in voting equipment. The far-right MAGA conspiracy theorists who falsely accused Dominion of helping Biden steal the 2020 election from Trump made the same accusation against Smartmatic, which is suing Fox News for $2.7 billion. And Smartmatic alleges that Fox News defamed the company by promoting those false accusations on the air.

In addition to suing Fox News, Dominion has filed defamation lawsuits against two Fox News competitors — Newsmax TV and One America News (OAN) — as well as former Trump attorney Sidney Powell and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. Dominion alleges that the defendants in those cases promoted false, defamatory claims about them after the 2020 election.

Read NBC News' full report at this link.

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