'Legal peril': Rupert Murdoch deposed in $2.7 billion Smartmatic suit threatening Fox News

The $2.7 billion Smartmatic defamation lawsuit against Fox News for pushing conspiracy theories about their voting equipment during the 2020 presidential election is heating up — and right-wing media titan Rupert Murdoch has now been deposed in the case, reportedThe Washington Post on Friday.

"In recent weeks the Smartmatic case has stirred to life, putting Murdoch’s company once again in legal peril. Murdoch’s son Lachlan, who now runs the family’s media business, will also be deposed in the case, as will Fox’s former top lawyer, Viet D. Dinh, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to comment," reported Jeremy Barr.

This comes after Fox was forced to settle the similar $1.6 billion lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems for just under $800 million — an event that was swiftly followed by the surprise ouster of controversial Fox primetime host Tucker Carlson — as well as $12 million to settle a separate lawsuit by former Carlson producer Abby Grossberg, alleging she was subject to a hostile work environment and coerced into lying to Dominion lawyers.

During the certification of the 2020 vote, Fox News put on a number of guests who pushed conspiracy theories, including Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, now indicted in Georgia, who claimed to have gotten some of her evidence of vote-rigging from a person who believed she could time-travel and speak with the wind.

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For its part, wrote Barr, "Fox believes that the case is winnable. The company says Smartmatic’s massive claim of $2.7 billion in financial losses is way off base, since it operates sparingly in the United States, with only one contract in one county for the 2020 election, while Dominion’s machines were used in several key states." However, "the network’s First Amendment defense — that Fox hosts were just doing their jobs and reporting the news — is very similar to what it used in the Dominion case, an argument that was rejected by that judge. Despite Fox’s efforts to distinguish the cases, a Dominion lawyer said at a hearing in September that 'Smartmatic’s defamation action is based on many of the same statements.'"

As all this is going on, Trump has largely turned against the staple right-wing network, with the network also increasingly icing him out of interviews.