After Donald Trump’s lost election in November 2020, executives and hosts at the conservative Fox News channel campaigned on the theme of the stolen election, but they didn’t believe a word of it. This is what emerges from a memorandum filed Thursday, February 16 in a Delaware court by the Dominion company, falsely accused of having rigged the ballot with its voting machines. The company has filed a defamation suit against Fox News and claims 1.6 billion dollars (about 1.5 billion euros).
The height of the controversy was reached during a memorable press conference on November 19, 2020 at the headquarters of the Republican Party in Washington. Donald Trump’s advisers, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and lawyer Sidney Powell are increasing accusations of fraud after the incumbent’s defeat. Without providing any proof. Sidney Powell notably implicates Dominion, a company accused of having developed a system to allow Hugo Chavez to rig his own elections in Venezuela, and of being linked to the left-wing billionaire of Hungarian origin George Soros and to the foundation Clinton.
The software used by Dominion, had accused Mme Powell, “can define and run an algorithm that has probably worked across the country to take a certain percentage of votes from President Trump and return them to President Biden”. Dominion’s lawyers multiplied the interviews and obtained written exchanges from the time. Reading their 192-page motion shows that the star hosts (Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham) and Tory channel executives knew full well they were relaying lies.
The first news channel in the United States
“Really crazy stuff, which will cause damage”grieved the owner of the chain, Rupert Murdoch, watching the press conference of Rudy Giuliani. “Sidney Powell lies”written as early as November 16 Tucker Carlson, Fox News’ most right-wing host. “I have a high tolerance for crazy people, but Powell is too much”he wrote later, before adding: “I hope she will be punished. “All this story that Sidney was telling, I didn’t believe it for a second”Sean Hannity would later declare.
But it was not necessary to displease the Trumpist electorate. Fox News is the number one news channel in the United States, the favorite channel of conservative Republicans. It is out of the question to abandon this vein to Newsmax, an even more right-wing channel. The drama begins on election night, November 3, 2020. Fox News is the first to announce Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona, the decisive state to win the presidential election.
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