Newsman:The judge overseeing Dominion Voting Systems’ massive defamation case against Fox News said Wednesday that he plans to appoint an outside attorney to investigate whether the right-wing network lied to the court and withheld key evidence, and sanctioned Fox’s attorneys over the matter.
The Dominion filed $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.
The special master will look into what sanctions might be appropriate against Fox, including potentially instructing jurors in the case that Fox inappropriately blocked Dominion from obtaining key evidence.
The judge ordered Fox to preserve “any and all communications” related to the Murdoch issue.
Fox denies wrongdoing and says it properly disclosed Murdoch’s roles in its public financial filings. Fox attorney Dan Webb said Wednesday that “nobody intentionally withheld information” from Dominion.
“I am very concerned … that there have been misrepresentations to the court. This is very serious,” Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis said Wednesday at a pretrial hearing in Wilmington, where he repeatedly expressed exasperation and frustration with Fox’s attorneys.
Judge Davis said he would appoint a so-called “special master” to investigate whether Fox previously made assertions to the court that were “untrue or negligent” when it said Rupert Murdoch was only an officer at Fox Corporation and didn’t have any role in Fox News – and when it said it had fulfilled all its obligations in the discovery process. This distinction about Murdoch may have narrowed what Fox turned over as part of the discovery process – like internal emails, text messages and other material.
The sanction Davis imposed against Fox will allow Dominion to conduct additional depositions of some Fox witnesses. Fox must make those witnesses available and pay for the depositions.
“I’m very uncomfortable right now,” Davis said, after dressing down Fox’s lawyers from the bench.
