We’re still sifting through this monster motion for summary judgment from Dominion in their defamation lawsuit against Fox News and need to get a big lowlight reel together, but this one deserves its own update: In discovery Dominion’s lawyers learned that fat former President Trump had dialed in to right wing asshole Lou Dobbs’s now-canceled Fox Business News show on the evening of January 6th, 2021 but didn’t get on air as Fox News executives blocked it.
“The afternoon of January 6, after the Capitol came under attack, then President Trump dialed into Lou Dobbs show attempting to get on air. But Fox executives vetoed that decision. Why? Not because of a lack of newsworthiness. January 6 was an important event by any measure. President Trump not only was the sitting President, he was the key figure that day. But Fox refused to allow President Trump on air that evening because it would be irresponsible to put him on the air and could impact a lot of people in a negative way. The same is true of statements Fox chose to air about Dominion. Not only did the charges severely impact Dominion and its employees, they were based on verifiable falsehoods that any accurate and disinterested reporting would have mentioned. Fox chose to spread lies instead of telling the truth. The neutral report privilege provides no comfort to Fox on these facts,” wrote Dominion’s lawyers on page 171 of the filing (but page 184 of the PDF).
Nice of them to add that in, even though it’s not something directly material to their case against Fox News. Seems like it should’ve been more of a House January 6th Select committee thing, seeing as how they published text messages between Sean Hannity and the White House from that day.