The answer? Apparently, not at all. “I did not believe it for one second,” Hannity said in a deposition for a lawsuit from Dominion against Fox News and the Fox Corporation, according to the New York Times. The deposition was made public during a December 21 hearing for the case, which sees Dominion suing the cable news giant for $1.6 billion, alleging defamation.
Hannity wasn’t alone; according to Dominion’s lawyer Stephen Shackelford during the Delaware Superior Court hearing, “not a single Fox witness” produced anything supporting the claims made against Dominion during their news coverage, and other high-profile heads at the network shared Hannity’s disbelief about the rhetoric the network was pushing, such as prime-time programming head Meade Cooper and fellow host Tucker Carlson.
Related All 126 Cable Channels Ranked by 2022 Viewership: CNN No Longer in Top 5 At Least We Know Who Won Election Night in TV Ratings Related Oscars 2023: ‘Everything Everywhere,’ ‘Nope’ Among Early Favorites 17 HBO and HBO Max Original Series to Get Excited About in 2023
According to Shackelford, Carlson “tried to squirm out of it at his deposition” when asked about his beliefs. Shackelford referred to text messages sent by the host between November and December 2020 before judge Eric M. David cut him off.
During the hearing, a second Dominion lawyer Justin Nelson said that the company obtained evidence that an unnamed employee of the Fox Corporation attempted to intervene with the White House to get Trump to cut ties with Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor and a frequent guest of Fox News who helped spread the fraud claims.
During the case, Judge Davis ruled that evidence Dominion used against Fox in its court filings will be kept under seal and unavailable to the public but warned both parties that that position could be reversed.
The Dominion lawsuit will head to jury trial this April. The suit was first filed in March 2021, shortly after the January 6 insurrection. According to a statement from Fox lawyer Dan K. Webb during the hearing, the company has produced more than 52,000 email and text messages from employees of Fox News and the Fox Corporation for use in the upcoming trial.
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
