(NewsNation) — Although they acted differently on air, some prominent Fox News hosts actually doubted some of former President Trump’s 2020 election fraud claims, according to court documents.
According to court filings made public Thursday by Dominion Voting Systems, which is suing Fox News and its parent company for $1.6 billion, private exchanges between Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and others, such as Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of Fox Corporation, shows doubts they had about what Trump and his supporters were saying.
Murdoch, Dominion said in its brief, internally described election fraud claims as “really crazy” and “damaging,” but did not use his power to stop them, according to Reuters.
Dominion is suing because it alleges Fox News deliberately amplified false claims that the company had changed votes in the 2020 election, and that the cable news channel had provided a platform for guests to make these kinds of defamatory statements.
In one text from the Thursday court filing, Carlson wrote to a Fox News producer in November 2020, that “Sidney Powell is lying” about having evidence for election fraud.
Powell, Trump’s lawyer at the time, was also called “a complete nut” by Ingraham.
“No one will work with her. Ditto with (former New York City Mayor) Rudy (Giuliani),” Ingraham said.
Dominion wrote that the cable news channel knew the things it was saying on air were “total bs.”
“Yet despite knowing the truth — or, at minimum, recklessly disregarding that truth — Fox spread and endorsed these ‘outlandish voter fraud claims’ about Dominion even as it internally recognized the lies as ‘crazy,’ ‘absurd,’ and ‘shockingly reckless,” the company wrote, citing a sealed exhibit.
The filing shows Carlson was concerned that Fox News’ decision to call the state of Arizona for Joe Biden on election night could end the network, according to Business Insider.
Trump, Carlson said, is good at “destroying things.”
“He’s the undisputed world champion of that,” Carlson wrote in the filing, per Business Insider. “He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”
That same day, Carlson texted someone else that “we’ve got to be incredibly careful right now,” and expressed fear that “we could get hurt.”
Carlson’s concerns for the network extended to the actions of other Fox News employees as well. After reporter Jacqui Heinrich posted a tweet disputing Trump’s views of voter fraud and Dominion, NewsNation partner the Hill wrote, Carlson sent fellow Fox host Sean Hannity a text asking to “get her fired.”
“It needs to stop immediately, like tonight,” Carlson wrote at the time. “It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.”
Dominion wrote, in the court filing, that although Fox knew the truth, or “recklessly” disregarded it, it endorsed and even spread voter fraud claims as rival networks, such as Newsmax, started gaining popularity by promoting what Trump said.
“The consequences to Dominion and to democracy did not matter,” Dominion wrote.
Not only did Fox defame Dominion once, the company argued, but over a “months-long time frame.”
In a statement, a Fox spokeswoman said, “Dominion has mischaracterized the record, cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law,” the New York Times wrote.
Responses to the briefs, by both Fox and Dominion, remain under seal. Dominion filed a challenge to the redactions, saying that “nothing” in them warrants confidential treatment.
Attorneys for Fox and Dominion told The Associated Press on Friday that responses to the briefs will remain under seal until Feb. 27.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.