(PresidentialHill.com)- Fox News charged Dominion Voting Systems with erasing or destroying correspondence from several top executives. They want the judge to dismiss the multibillion-dollar case in their penalty request.
The charges made by the network are only briefly described in the court documents Law & Crime saw, including the claim that senior executives John Poulos, Waldeep Singh, and Kay Stinson’s electronic messages were spoliated.
Poulos, the CEO of Dominion, appeared with Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes this last Sunday. Its vice president for government affairs is Stinson, while its executive vice president of sales is Singh.
The general definition of spoliation is “the destruction, hiding, or failure to preserve by one party of evidence that is significant to a claim and prevents the opposing party from advancing its case.” If it is determined that one of the parties engaged in such behavior, the court may punish that party or even throw out the complaint.
Additionally, the network’s legal team submitted a Proposed Order that would accept Dominion’s request for sanctions in addition to many other possible benefits for the network, including an order throwing the case altogether.
Fox is requesting that the jury be instructed that, if the complaint is not dismissed, it “must presume the messages contained information unfavorable to Plaintiffs about the defamatory nature of [Fox News Network coverage ]’s of the President’s allegations and the security of Plaintiffs’ machines and information undermining Plaintiffs’ damages calculation.”
In addition, the network asked for Dominion to be required to establish untruth and general and particular damages by clear and convincing proof regardless of whether the Plaintiffs prove defamation per se.
Dominion’s $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox is based on the fact that in part to deter viewers from tuning in to networks farther to the right; Fox willfully misled its viewers regarding the truthfulness of electoral fraud and election rigging claims during the 2020 presidential election.
The lawsuit claims that after November 3, 2020, presidential election, viewers started to switch to media outlets that supported the false narrative that President Trump lost the election due to widespread fraud. Because Fox was the first network to report that President Trump lost Arizona, they felt that the network provided insufficient support for President Trump. As a result, Fox deliberately and fraudulently accused Dominion of rigging the election to win back viewers, including President Trump.
Dominion says Fox News knew the company’s allegations of voter fraud were false but aired them anyway.
