Judge chides Fox News lawyers’ 'credibility problem' in pre-trial hearing
A judge blasted a Fox News attorney in a pre-trial hearing of Dominion’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the right-wing cable channel, essentially accusing the defense of blocking access to information in the case.
Tuesday’s blowup happened when Dominion’s attorneys raised the issue that Fox News was late to nail down exactly who are considered corporate officers of Fox News, “which is critical to discovery procedures in civil litigation,” The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple reports in a series of tweets.
Fox News submitted the names of Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer Joe Dorrego, and President/Executive Editor Jay Wallace.
But on Easter Sunday Fox News added Rupert Murdoch, the Chairman of Fox Corporation to the list. Dominion’s attorneys told the judge that adding Murdoch at the last minute was problematic, because they had not conducted discovery interviews with Murdoch since he wasn’t listed as a corporate officer.
“From the beginning of this suit, said the Dominion lawyer, they have been blocked from securing key discovery documents relating to Rupert Murdoch,” Wemple adds.
“This alone has meant that we are missing a whole bunch of Rupert Murdoch documents alone that we otherwise would have been entitled to,” Dominion’s lawyer told the judge. “And yet they didn’t tell us this for two years and we would ask at a minimum that by tonight or tomorrow morning that they could give us an explanation because it is very troubling that this is where we are.”
Wemple adds that “Judge Davis told a Fox lawyer, ‘You have a credibility problem’ and ‘I need to be comfortable that when you make representations to me, that they’re true.’ This wrinkle could have affected his previous rulings in the case and concluded, ‘Okay, all right — we’ll deal with it.’”
Last week The Washington Post’s Jeremy Barr tweeted how Dominion had been trying to get Rupert Murdoch and his son, Fox Corporation executive chairman and CEO Lachlan Murdoch, to testify.
At The Washington Post Tuesday afternoon, Barr reports Judge Davis “barred Fox from arguing to the jury that there was news value in broadcasting the claims of election fraud made by Trump lawyers in fall 2020. If such a suggestion is made in court, ‘I would have to tell the jury that newsworthiness is not a defense to defamation,’ Davis said.”
Trial attorney Max Kennerly appeared to mock the Fox News attorney in response to Wemple’s tweet: “On the eve of trial, after two years of denying it, Fox News’ lawyers suddenly disclosed that one of the corporate officers of Fox News is a guy named ‘Rupert Murdoch.’ It was an oopsie, an oversight, anybody could’ve overlooked that Rupert dude. Uh huh. Sure.”
