New evidence released in the Fox News (FOX) defamation lawsuit being brought by Dominion Voting Systems reveals new details on how the network ignored its fact checkers.
Shortly after the 2020 presidential election, a "brain room" at the media company examined whether Dominion had rigged the election against former President Donald Trump.
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The fact-checking division came to the conclusion that the claims were not true, but the network reported them anyway.
Newly released slides from Dominion in a pre-trial hearing for the $1.6 billion lawsuit show internal documents that get to the heart of the matter.
"Claims about Dominion switching or deleting votes are 100% false," one document read, according to NBC News. "Dominion Systems continue to reliably and accurately count ballots, and state and local election authorities, as well fact checkers, have publicly confirmed the integrity of the process."
One e-mail replied to a statement attributed to Trump.
"Dominion deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide. Data analysis finds 221,000 Pennsylvania votes switched from President Trump to Biden," the email quoted Trump as saying. "941,000 Trump votes deleted. States using Dominion Voting Systems switched 435,000 votes from Trump to Biden."
The email then gave its findings about the truthfulness of Trump's claims.
"The facts:" it said. "There's no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, or of major problems with Dominion's systems. Election officials from both political parties have stated publicly that the election went well, and international observers confirmed there were no serious irregularities."
David Clark, Fox News' senior vice president for weekend news and programming, was quoted as affirming that the assertions should not have been made on air.
"If the brain room had concluded that the charges were, in fact, false, they never should have been aired, correct?"
"Yes," Clark answered.
Dominion says it was severely damaged by the claims.
"Despite the noise and confusion that Dominion has generated by presenting cherry-picked quotes without context, this case is ultimately about the First Amendment protections of the media's absolute need to cover the news," a Fox News spokesperson has said in a statement. "Fox will continue to fiercely advocate for the rights of free speech and a free press."
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