Judge orders investigation into Fox News for concealing evidence after delaying start of $1.6bn Dominion defamation trial
A judge in the Dominion defamation trial formally appointed a special master to investigate Fox News prior to the $787.5m settlement on Tuesday.
Judge Eric Davis had earlier signalled his unhappiness at the rightwing network’s apparent failure to disclose key evidence ahead of the trial.
Opening statements had been due to begin at 1.30pm on Tuesday in the highly-anticipated defamation trial, before attorneys for both parties reached a massive settlement in the defamation trial.
In a new filing on Tuesday afternoon, Judge Davis ordered the special master to determine “whether Fox News Network... complied with their discovery allegations.”
Judge Davis raised concerns last week around whether Fox attorneys misled the court by representing Rupert Murdoch as merely an officer at Fox Corporation and not revealing he was also a corporate officer at Fox News.
Dominion also revealed previously unaired tapes of Fox News host Maria Bartiromo talking with then-Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell in November 2020.
In the tapes, Mr Giuliani told Ms Bartiromo that he couldn’t prove some of his allegations about Dominion.
A Dominion lawyer alleged that Fox had only recently turned over the material after it was revealed in a lawsuit brought by Ms Bartiromo’s senior producer Abby Grossberg.
“I am very concerned... that there have been misrepresentations to the court. This is very serious,” Judge Davis said at the time.
Blake Rohrbacher, an attorney for Fox News, apologised to the judge in a letter to the court over the weekend.
Mr Rohrbacher called the situation a “misunderstanding” and said that they “understand the Court’s concerns, apologise, and are committed to clear and full communication with the Court moving forward”.
A special master is usually an attorney appointed as an independent expert to address whether the discovery process has been properly complied with.
Fox News is accused of knowingly spreaking false claims about the voting machine company in the afermath of the 2020 presidential election.
Fox has denied the allegations, arguing that the network’s statements made on-air were protected under the First Amendment.
Court filings leading up to the trial stitched together a much-larger picture of the Fox organisation, its decision making, and concerns over competition from other right-wing networks.
The special master is due to report back to the judge on 15 May.
