'Pretty out there!' Emails and texts expose Fox hosts who didn’t buy Trump’s election lies
The voting machine company Smartmatic submitted a new court filing this week in its lawsuit against Fox News, calling for the judge to issue a quick ruling in their favor. The details in the filing, however, reveal previously unknown comments from top Fox hosts and allies of Donald Trump who never believed his 2020 election conspiracies.
Before going to work for the Trump administration this month, Jeanine Pirro was claiming that software from Dominion was known to switch votes. Meanwhile, according to Smartmatic's filing, Pirro didn't buy the election fraud claims.
"I believe that there’s been no showing that Smartmatic engaged in any problem," wrote Pirro.
But behind the scenes, Pirro was trying to score more from the Trump campaign. In one exchange, Pirro allegedly texted about "helping Trump while at Fox News," the court documents show.
"I work so hard for the party across the country," Pirro said in another text message to former Republican Party chair Ronna Romney McDaniel.
"I'm the Number 1 watched show on all news cable all weekend. I work so hard for the President and party," Pirro ranted.
At one point, Fox began to get nervous about the election conspiracy theories and went so far as to bench Pirro.
"They did not trust Pirro to be on air because she would invite guests 'to say the election is being stolen,'" the court filing reads. "When Pirro '[went] off on her conspiracy tangent on a show staff call,” Fox News executives canceled her upcoming show out of fear over what she might say about the election."
There are scores of pages about host Jesse Watters, but one demand sent to Greg Gutfeld read, "Think about how incredible our ratings would be if Fox went ALL in on STOP THE STEAL."
In reality, however, Watters understood Smartmatic didn't change votes.
"He never 'bought into' the notion that 'software and voting machines' shifted votes. He believed that such a claim was 'pretty out there.' He conceded the Dominion Lie and Other Lies were 'easily verifiable.' His team then determined they were 'UNVERIFIED,'" said the ruling.
Lou Dobbs was another host who once had the top-rated show on Fox Business News. He went after Smartmatic, falsely claiming on Nov. 18, 2020, that the company was run by "left-wing radicals."
He welcomed guests like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell onto his show to continue spreading the election conspiracies. In Giuliani's case, the former mayor claimed that Dominion Voting Systems was owned by Smartmatic. It is not.
On Nov. 16, Dobbs parroted that “Dominion has connections” to Smartmatic, and alleged Smartmatic “had ties to” Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.
Dobbs was ultimately forced to run a show where he explained that he was wrong. Smartmatic demanded that Fox issue corrections and that they “must be published on multiple occasions." That included during prime-time shows, to “match the attention and audience targeted with the original defamatory publications.”
Host Sean Hannity was furious when he was fact-checked on the 2020 election conspiracy by Fox's Eric Shawn. He went straight to the network president, saying that they were fracturing the Fox audience by not doubling down on the election lies.
“Not only does this violate my contract, it insults an eyewitness whistleblower, who is basically called a liar on our network," Hannity said in a message to Fox News President Jay Wallace.
"Is news completely tone deaf regarding the irreparable harm being done to the channels brand. Did you ever imagine our core audience chanting ‘Fox news Sucks’?.... Now that this is the second attack vs me after the election by the ‘news division’ I will be responding publicly and forcefully later today and protect my integrity and my reputation vs these unfair and unwarranted attacks," blasted Hannity.
Wallace responded, “I am pissed about this Shawn hit because it’s the complete opposite of what we did all day on linear and digital with the whistleblowers - which we covered respectively - they were great guests. I am getting to him and the show. I’m sorry this happened. In regards to the overall issue - after 24 years plus of building this place up with you guys, it pains me deeply to see this fracture with the audience. I’m fighting like hell to get it back on track too.”
Hannity replied, making it clear that the network should promote the conspiracies because their audience believed them.
"I’ll only say the last 2 days provided the best opportunity, especially after all these different incidents, since the election night debacle to show our core audience that we have heard you loud and clear, and we are making real changes…. Moving forward, if it happens again, I’m not going to write anyone, and I will forcefully defend myself. Please make sure everyone in ‘News’ understands I want to be left completely alone, on air, on social media, and in their private meetings.”
The full filings can be read below.