New York
CNN
—
Dominion Voting Systems’ historic defamation case against Fox News will proceed to a high-stakes jury trial in mid-April, a Delaware judge ruled Friday, in a major decision that dismantled several of the right-wing network’s key defenses.
The judge’s decision is a painful setback for Fox News and sets the stage for an agonizing, weekslong trial, where the network’s highest-ranking executives and most prominent hosts could be called to the stand to testify about the 2020 election lies that were promoted on its air.
Both sides had asked Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis for a pretrial ruling in their favor, declaring them the winner. After thousands of pages of filings and exhibits, and a series of courtroom clashes, Davis decided the case should go to trial. But one question jurors won’t need to weigh, he concluded, was whether Fox’s claims about Dominion were true or false.
“The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that is CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,” Davis wrote.
Unless there is an out-of-court settlement — which is always possible — Davis’ ruling means jurors will need to decide whether Fox News defamed Dominion by repeatedly promoting false claims that the voting technology company rigged the 2020 presidential election by flipping millions of votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. Dominion wants $1.6 billion in damages.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin on April 13 in Wilmington, Delaware.
Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corporation, deny all wrongdoing. They’ve argued that their conspiracy theory-filled broadcasts after the 2020 election were protected by the First Amendment, because their on-air reporters were merely reporting on “newsworthy allegations.”
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