{"id":3064,"date":"2026-04-25T00:09:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T00:09:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/?p=3064"},"modified":"2026-04-25T00:09:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T00:09:30","slug":"index-html-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/?p=3064","title":{"rendered":"Fox News settles with Dominion for $787 million, averting defamation trial over its 2020 election lies"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Wilmington, Delaware<\/span>CNN<\/span>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/span>
\n <\/cite><\/p>\n

\n Fox News reached a last-second settlement with Dominion Voting Systems on Tuesday as the case raced toward opening statements, paying more than $787 million to end a colossal two-year legal battle<\/a> that publicly shredded the right-wing network\u2019s credibility.\n <\/p>\n

\n Fox News\u2019 $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems is the largest publicly known defamation settlement in US history involving a media company.\n <\/p>\n

\n The deal was announced hours after the jury was sworn in at the Delaware Superior Court. Rumors of a settlement swirled in the courthouse when, after a lunch break, the proceedings dramatically ground to a halt for nearly three hours with no explanation, while the parties apparently hammered out an accord.\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n \"Attorneys<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n \u201cThe parties have resolved their case,\u201d Judge Eric Davis said, before dismissing the 12-member jury, crediting them with giving the parties an impetus to reach a settlement, effusively praising the lawyers from both sides, and gaveling out the so-called media \u201ctrial of the century\u201d before it could even begin.\n <\/p>\n

\n The groundbreaking settlement \u201crepresents vindication and accountability,\u201d Dominion lawyer Justin Nelson said. \u201cFor our democracy to endure for another 250 years, and hopefully much longer, we must share a commitment to facts\u2026 Today represents a ringing endorsement for truth and for democracy.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The right-wing network said in a statement that it \u201cacknowledge[s] the Court\u2019s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false,\u201d referring to Davis\u2019 recent ruling<\/a> that 20 Fox News broadcasts from late 2020 contained blatantly untrue assertions that Dominion rigged the presidential election. But Fox won\u2019t have to admit on-air that it spread lies about Dominion, a Dominion representative told CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n The $787.5 million payout is roughly half of the $1.6 billion that Dominion initially sought<\/a>, though it is nearly 10 times the company\u2019s valuation from 2018, and roughly eight times its annual revenue in 2021, according to court filings.\n <\/p>\n

\n The last-minute agreement means the closely watched case<\/a> is over and won\u2019t proceed to trial. By settling with Dominion, influential Fox News executives and prominent on-air personalities will be spared from testifying<\/a> about their 2020 election coverage, which was filled with lies about voter fraud.\n <\/p>\n

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\n \"Fox<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n The witness list<\/a> included Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch, his CEO son Lachlan Murdoch, and top Fox hosts like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. Damning emails, texts, and deposition testimony made public during the case revealed that these figures, and many others at Fox, privately said in 2020 that the vote-rigging claims against Dominion were asinine. But the lies were spread on-air anyway.\n <\/p>\n

\n Rupert Murdoch thought<\/a> the election denialism was \u201creally crazy,\u201d even as Fox personalities peddled those same claims to millions of viewers. Carlson said he \u201cpassionately\u201d hates Donald Trump<\/a>, whose presidency was a \u201cdisaster.\u201d Fox hosts, producers, fact-checkers, and senior executives privately said in the on-air claims of a stolen election were \u201ckooky,\u201d \u201cdangerously reckless\u201d and \u201cmind-blowingly nuts.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n These revelations generated months<\/a> of blistering<\/a> headlines for Fox as the case moved toward trial. By settling now, Fox deprived Dominion a chance to further expose its dishonesty with a weeks-long trial.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis settlement reflects Fox\u2019s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards,\u201d Fox said in a statement Tuesday. \u201cWe are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Fox News and Fox Corporation \u2013 its parent company, which was also a defendant \u2013 maintain they never defamed Dominion, and say the case was a meritless assault on First Amendment press freedoms.\n <\/p>\n

\n Speculation of a settlement reached a fever pitch in recent days, especially after the court on Sunday announced a one-day delay<\/a> to the start of the trial, which was originally set to begin on Monday.\n <\/p>\n

\n The jury selection process<\/a> wrapped up as planned Tuesday morning, and both sides prepped for opening statements. They even briefly tangled over objections to specific slides in their presentations. But when the proceedings didn\u2019t promptly resume after lunch, the chances of a deal seemed to rise by the minute, even though the top lawyers from both sides sat in the courtroom, looking at their phones, and waiting.\n <\/p>\n

\n The racially diverse jury of six men and six women was brought back into the court, ready for their front-row seat to a historic trial. But Davis, the judge, instead told the panel they helped spur a settlement.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cYour presence here, short compared to what you thought, and uneventful in a certain sense, was extremely important,\u201d Davis said. \u201cWithout you, the parties would not have been able to resolve their situation.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Many on the Dominion side cast the settlement as a victory for democracy and for truth itself.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cFox has admitted to telling lies about Dominion that caused enormous damage to my company, our employees, and the customers that we serve,\u201d Dominion CEO John Poulos said Tuesday outside court.\n <\/p>\n

\n While the Dominion case is now over, Fox News is still facing a second major defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic<\/a>, another voting technology company that was similarly smeared on Fox News\u2019 shows after the 2020 election. That case is still in the discovery process, and a trial isn\u2019t expected anytime soon.\n <\/p>\n

\n For its part, Dominion still has pending lawsuits against right-wing TV networks Newsmax and OAN, as well as against Trump allies Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell. They all deny wrongdoing.\n <\/p>\n

\n CNN\u2019s Liam Reilly and Danny Freeman contributed to this story.<\/em>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wilmington, DelawareCNN\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Fox News reached a last-second settlement with Dominion Voting Systems on Tuesday as the case raced toward opening statements, paying more than $787 million to end a colossal two-year legal battle that publicly shredded the right-wing network\u2019s credibility. Fox News\u2019 $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems is the largest publicly known defamation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[219,197,62,57,395],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gear-gear-news-and-events","category-general","category-news","category-newsletters","category-security-security-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}