A voting machine company that sued Fox News for spreading false claims that it rigged the 2020 presidential election against Donald Trump said some executives and hosts at the network still haven’t handed over any records related to its coverage.
Dominion Voting Systems Inc., which filed a $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox in March 2021, said in a court filing in Delaware that Fox hasn’t completed the process of handing over relevant evidence in the case, having missed extended deadlines in April and June.
“Dominion still has not received any documents from many Fox custodians, including key executives and some hosts, and vast swaths of non-email documents are missing,” Dominion said in the July 18 filing.
The clash over documents comes less than a month after the judge overseeing the case denied Fox’s motion to dismiss the suit, holding that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch may have acted with “actual malice” in directing the network to broadcast conspiracy theories about Dominion.
A special master assigned to oversee the parties’ exchange of evidence had ordered Fox to finish the process by June 24 after Dominion alleged the network “chose to withhold highly relevant documents” in April. Fox has denied dragging its feet and claimed the deadlines would result in a rushed process.
Fox, which claims its coverage of the election was appropriate and protected by the First Amendment, didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the filing.
The case is Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox Corp., No. N21C-11-082 EMD CCLD, Delaware Superior Court (Wilmington).
