Sean Hannity was willing to promote Donald Trump's bogus election fraud claims on his Fox News show but unwilling to defend them under oath.
The New York Times is reporting that when Hannity was deposed earlier this year as a part of a massive defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems, he testified, "I did not believe it for one second."
The Times notes that the high legal standard of proof in defamation cases requires Dominion to persuade a jury that network employees were saying one thing in public and another in private. Hannity's disclosure is among the strongest evidence yet to emerge publicly that some Fox employees knew that what they were broadcasting was false, per The Times.
Dominion lawyer Stephen Shackelford says Hannity's doubts were echoed in depositions with other Fox hosts and executives, including Tucker Carlson.
Dominion Voting Systems claims it was the target of misleading, false and bizarre claims spread by Trump and his allies in the aftermath of his election loss to Joe Biden. The company filed the defamation lawsuit against Fox News in March 2021, arguing the cable news giant falsely claimed -- in an effort to boost faltering ratings -- that the voting company had rigged the 2020 election.
The $1.6 billion lawsuit alleges that Fox News amplified inaccurate assertions that Dominion altered votes and "sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring Dominion in the process."
"The truth matters. Lies have consequences," the lawsuit says. "Fox sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring Dominion in the process. If this case does not rise to the level of defamation by a broadcaster, then nothing does."
According to the lawsuit, Fox personalities brought on Trump allies, such as Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell, that the network "knew would make false and defamatory statements" about the voting machine company.
"Fox republished those defamatory and false statements of fact on the air, Fox's websites, Fox's social media accounts, and Fox's other digital platforms and subscription services," the lawsuit says.
In the two-week period after Fox News declared President Biden the president-elect, the network questioned results of the election or pushed conspiracy theories at least 774 times, according to the lawsuit.
Dominion said it attempted to factually address Fox's election fraud allegations, but Fox continued to connect the company to the claims.
An investigation by the Justice Department uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Last December, Fox requested the lawsuit be dismissed due to First Amendment protections, but a judge was not swayed and allowed the suit to proceed.
"When Fox guests spread or reiterated disinformation about Dominion, Fox did not use the information Dominion provided to correct its guests or to reorient its viewers. Instead, Fox and its personnel pressed their view that considerable evidence connected Dominion to an illegal election fraud conspiracy," Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis wrote in his ruling. "Given that Fox apparently refused to report contrary evidence, including evidence from the Department of Justice, the Complaint's allegations support the reasonable inference that Fox intended to keep Dominion's side of the story out of the narrative."
The case is expected to head for a jury trial in April.
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