(NewsNation) — One of the sources behind election fraud claims that are the subject of a lawsuit between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems was an email from a conspiracy theorist who said she got her information from “The Wind.”
This information comes from a recent filing in the lawsuit, which was made public Thursday. The filing shows that Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo was forwarded an email from former President Donald Trump’s then-lawyer Sidney Powell titled “Election Fraud Info.” The filing states that Powell received the email from a “source” who accused Dominion of causing voting irregularities in a number of states.
“Who am I?” the author of the email asked. “And how do I know all of this? … I’ve had the strangest dreams since I was a little girl. … I was internally decapitated, and yet, I live. … The Wind tells me I’m a ghost, but I don’t believe it.”
The woman who sent the email also said she got her information by experiencing something “like time-travel in a semi-conscious state,” and that she receives other messages from The Wind as well.
Despite this, Bartiromo had Powell on the show to talk about voter fraud claims in the email on Sunday, Nov. 8, according to the filing. However, Bartiromo did not report on the email itself or say that’s where the information came from.
“Bartiromo knew Powell would respond with conspiracy theories about Dominion,” the filing said.
While on the show, Powell claimed that Dominion’s software had an “algorithm” used as part of a “massive and coordinated effort to steal this election” from Trump.
“There’s nothing illegal about saying crazy things or believing crazy things. But when it comes to sort of your journalistic responsibility and media, the responsibility is for the person who is on air and for the person who is putting them on air,” Colby Hall, the founding editor for Mediate.com, said. “And in this case, Sidney Powell is the one who amplified these bonkers theories as though they were legit. And of course, Fox News gave her the platform and didn’t push back.”
Dominion’s filing also shows that the email was called “nonsense” and unreliable by Bartiromo at a deposition.
The “full force of the email’s lunacy” can be seen by reading it, Dominion said.
Other conspiracy theories outlined in the email include that former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes — who is now deceased — and Rupert Murdoch huddled together to plan how to portray Trump in a bad light.
Dominion is suing Fox News and its parent company for $1.6 billion. It alleges Fox deliberately amplified false claims that the company changed votes in the 2020 election, and that the cable news channel provided guests with a platform to make these defamatory statements.
Court documents showed that prominent Fox News hosts actually doubted some of Trump’s 2020 election fraud claims; however, this was contrary to what they said and how they acted on air.
In a statement to NewsNation, Fox said the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, and that their hosts were reporting on newsworthy allegations.
“Dominion has mischaracterized the record, cherry-picked the quotes stripped of key context, and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law,” according to Fox’s statement.