The Fox News Case: Defamation of Hillary Clinton in the 2020 2020 Midterm Electoral Campaign and the Commission’s Obstruction to Defamation
Fox lawyers previously told Judge Eric M. Davis that Murdoch wasn’t an officer for the cable network. He said such information could have led to different decisions in the case.
The statement was one of a flurry of eye-opening exchanges between Davis and attorneys at the Tuesday hearing, during which the court set rules for what is certain to be a landmark defamation trial, scheduled for later this month.
The judge’s comments Tuesday mark the second time in a week that questions have arisen about the credibility of Fox attorneys. Last month, former Fox producer Abby Grossberg filed a lawsuit against the network alleging those attorneys “coerced, intimidated, and misinformed” her before she sat for questioning by a Dominion attorney in September (Fox has said Grossberg’s allegations in connection with the Dominion case are baseless).
Voting machine software company Dominion Voting Systems is suing Fox News, and its parent Fox Corp, on claims the network repeatedly aired baseless statements about voter fraud during the wake of the 2020 presidential election. The statements about voting software switched votes between Donald Trump and Joe Biden were pushed by his supporters and his inner circle. They often did so on Fox News.
Davis appeared to question Fox attorneys’ credibility and even excoriate them because of Nelson’s comments. “I don’t know why this is such a difficult thing,” he said, referring to apparent confusion over the identities of Fox News’ officers.
Beyond the questions of Murdoch’s roles, Tuesday’s hearing also featured atesty exchange between Davis and attorneys that touched on a key Fox defense, which is that it cannot be sued for defamation because it has the right to air allegations made by people close to the president of the United
Davis thinks that the cable network can be held responsible for the billion-dollar claim even though its hosts often do not utter the statements that are defamatory.
It’s irrelevant whether the person making the false claim was a Fox employee or a Fox guest, as long as the company publishes information with malice, argued Davis.
But he has also made some important decisions that have shaped the parameters of the case. Fox argued that the First Amendment protected it because it accurately reported on voter fraud allegations and that its hosts endorsed false claims, but that argument was thrown out by a judge in March.
Later during Tuesday’s hearing, Dominion attorneys also pushed back against a previous decision from the court that barred them from introducing information at trial about the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol, or about details of threats made against Dominion employees.
In response, Dominion attorney Megan Meier argued that it was Fox broadcasts that directly motivated individuals to make threats against employees at the voting machine company.
She said Fox effectively yelled fire in a crowded theater — quoting an often-cited limit to free speech — but Fox “doesn’t want to hear about the stampede that followed.”
Davis in response again suggested a question that Dominion could ask in its place. He said Dominion could inquire why Fox executives chose to pull back support from Trump. The judge said that if the answer came up on Jan. 6 it would allow them to pursue the topic.
To ensure that jurors would only rule on the claims in the case, Davis stressed that he should strike a “balance” between giving attorneys leeway and ensuring they do not revisit controversial issues after the trial is over.
The Case of Trump and the Trump Organization Revisited: Trump Comes Back in New York to Answer Questions about his Conduct in Election Fraud Publication
He is due back in New York on Thursday to answer questions about his conduct, a week after being charged with a crime.
Last week, Trump pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the porn star’s hush money payment. He’s expected back in the city where he made his name to give a deposition in a separate civil case alleging that he and three of his adult children falsified Trump Organization accounts in a years-long fraud to enrich themselves.
The two trips encapsulate the converging legal battles that are putting Trump’s time-honored strategy of delay, denial and distraction to its ultimate test.
The barrage of legal jeopardy doesn’t mean the ex-president is guilty of anything, and he denies wrongdoing in all cases. But it shows that Trump and others involved in the election fraud publicity of the 2020 race may have to answer for their conduct, which critics have argued flies in the face of the law.
Trump’s lawyers, for example, are asking a judge to delay for one month a civil sexual assault and defamation trial brought by former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, which was slated to begin later this month. His team wants a “cooling off period” following his indictment in the Manhattan case for falsifying business records, arguing that jurors would have those charges “top of mind” when they are called.
The case, which CNN analyst Eli Honig predicted would turn into a full-blown legal and journalistic disaster for Fox,took another ominous turn on Wednesday when the judge said he would appoint an outside attorney to investigate the possible withholding of evidence.
Trump’s trip back to New York on Thursday follows a deposition he gave Attorney General Letitia James’ office last year before the suit against him and the Trump Organization was filed, in which he cited his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to more than 400 questions. His position is more nuanced now that a jury can make an inference if a person takes the Fifth in a civil case.
In the same way that he responds to any accusation of wrongdoing, the former president accused legal authorities of pursuing a vendetta against him when he was sued by James, a Democrat.
Similarly, he has responded to his indictment in Manhattan by accusing District Attorney Alvin Bragg, also a Democrat, of seeking to prevent him reclaiming the White House in his 2024 campaign. The ex-president said he would not drop out of the race if he was convicted in an interview with Tucker Carlson on Tuesday.
Trump has denied sexually assaulting Carroll, who alleges Trump raped her in a New York department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. She first sued Trump for defamation in 2019 after he denied the rape and alleged she made the claim to boost sales of her book.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/13/politics/donald-trump-criminal-civil-cases/index.html
The Ex-President’s Case to Discredit Bragg: A New Claims Settlement in a Civil Prosecutive Action against Michel Cohen
The ex-president, who has long been known for using the court system to pursue his personal and political goals, unveiled yet another legal front on Wednesday by announcing a $500 million lawsuit alleging that Michel Cohen breached his contract as his former personal attorney.
The move raised immediate suspicions that Trump was seeking to intimidate or silence Cohen, who testified before the Manhattan grand jury and is likely to be a key witness in Bragg’s prosecution. Prosecutors allege that Trump tried to hide hush money payments to adult actress Stormy Daniels to avoid harming his 2016 campaign.
CNN legal analyst Karen Friedman Agnifilo said on “Erin Burnett OutFront” on Wednesday that Trump appeared to be trying to get around the judge’s warning that the matter should not be tried in the court of public opinion. The timing is suspect, the claims are suspect, and I don’t know how this is going to work, according to a former chief assistant district attorney.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, meanwhile, stepped up his apparent effort to thwart Bragg’s investigation – or at least to discredit Bragg in the eyes of voters – in the latest move from Trump’s allies to fight the case in public before it ever reaches the courtroom. The Ohio Republican announced a slate of witnesses for a field hearing of his committee in New York on Monday as he attempts to make a case that Bragg went after Trump for political reasons.
A series of recent pretrial rulings has provided more clarity on how Judge Davis operates, and shows he has taken steps to reassure both parties that he had not predetermined the outcomes.
“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,” Judge Davis wrote in a 130-page decision.