Rupert Murdoch to be deposed in Dominion defamation case against Fox News

Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch is scheduled to be questioned on Tuesday in regard to a defamation lawsuit against Fox News' coverage of debunked claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, Reuters reported.

The lawsuit was filed against Fox by Dominion Voting Systems, which alleged that the news network spread false information about its voting machines in the aftermath of the election, and falsely claimed their machines were rigged in favor of President Biden. Dominion is seeking $1.6 billion in damages from Fox as a result of the network's claims, and the lawsuit also named other Republican figures who spread similar theories.

Reuters noted that Murdoch, an Australian-American business magnate, will be by far the most high-profile figure to be questioned in the case, owing to his ownership of numerous influential media outlets. Beyond the Fox Corporation, Murdoch's sister company News Corp has assets that include Dow Jones & Company, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and British newspapers The Sun and The Times.

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Lawyers for Dominion have also attempted to seek a deposition from Murdoch's son and other top individuals within Fox News. While the network has claimed that it was simply reporting on allegations of voter fraud by former President Donald Trump, Dominion has argued the company acted with "actual malice."

Defamation lawyer Doug Mirell told Reuters that Dominion had an "air-tight" case against Fox because hosts on the network continued to push allegations of voter fraud "well after it was quite clear that these claims were demonstrably false."