Former FBI counsel warns of hefty punitive damages for Fox and predicts their defense will fail

Court documents were revealed this week in Dominion Voting System's defamation case against Fox News that detailed some of the depositions and documents of high-level Fox executives that exposed the uphill climb the network has when defending itself.

Speaking to MSNBC's Ari Melber on Thursday, former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann explained that based on what has been released, things don't seem to be going well for Fox.

"We could talk about failures and endorsements and lies, but [Murdoch] seems to think he can push others out front and he can back away and say, 'it was just business,'" said Melber. "But you see limits to that how?"

"So, I think that might be a perfectly good strategy for the public, but I don't see that working in any way in a court of law, which you alluded to," said Weissmann. "The way law works, it doesn't matter if it turns out it's just incredibly powerful anchors who are doing this with malice, or with the CEO who's doing this with malice. All of that is imputed to the company. It's the company that's on trial. So, in other words, the fact that the very, very top of the company is not involved wouldn't be a defense."

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He explained that it's well-known that Fox is firmly controlled by Murdoch and now his son. According to the depositions, the emails and the text messages, Weissmann said that it's clear they were focusing on the fallout as a result of the company calling Arizona for Joe Biden.

"The theory here is, Dominion says, because of that reaction, all hell broke loose internally with the anchors realizing the stock was going to go down," said Weissmann citing text messages from host Tucker Carlson saying that people should be fired for fact-checking them over the 2020 election because the stock could decline.

"I don't think factually it going to works, and I don't think legally it works to say, 'Oh, it's only the person who reported to me who's responsible,'" said Weissmann.

Melber compared it to a case of Disney being sued because Mickey Mouse isn't a real mouse. Disney is fiction, and Fox purports to be a factual "news" outlet.

"And they have been caught lying, they are on trial for knowing deliberate defamation and lying," said Melber. "So saying, hey, we just put this out, doesn't work on a defamation case, which is different perhaps than other places Murdoch may have tried these defenses."

Melber went on to play clips of call that Sean Hannity got into his radio show demanding answers about his comments that Trump didn't win the election. At the time, Hannity was spinning a different story on his show

See the full exchange below or at this link.

Why Fox's defense won't workyoutu.be