Opinion | Dominion’s CEO: Why We Settled the Fox News Lawsuit
Vindication. Disgrace. Triumph. Tragedy. Give up. These are a couple of of the characterizations I’ve heard following our current settlement with Fox Information in our historic defamation case in opposition to the community for its lies about Dominion Voting Methods and the 2020 election.
The general public has sophisticated emotions about our resolution to finish this trial earlier than it ever started, and that’s OK. It’s bittersweet for us, too.
We’ve seen the havoc that lies create for societies, democracies, companies and households. Over the previous two and a half years, I’ve watched it firsthand. My prospects, workers, household and mates face harassment, discrimination and threats to this present day.
However for us at Dominion, after we mirror on the case and its consequence, we take into consideration our at the beginning aim: accountability.
On Tuesday, after we proudly walked into the Delaware Superior Court docket, we had been going to trial. We knew our case was extremely sturdy, and I nonetheless imagine that on the finish of the six-week trial, the jury most certainly would have agreed.
We had reviewed greater than 1,000,000 inside Fox paperwork and deposed dozens of individuals, and Fox’s authorized group had reviewed greater than 1,000,000 of ours. Then, in a abstract judgment ruling on March 31, the courtroom allowed the case to proceed and dismantled a lot of Fox’s authorized defenses, ruling its claims about Dominion had been clearly false and it couldn’t search refuge in arguments in regards to the lies’ newsworthiness.
At trial, we weren’t anticipating any extra stunning revelations — we frankly didn’t want any extra. From the earliest days of discovery, we knew our workers, our prospects and the American public wanted to see what we had discovered, and that’s precisely what we introduced in our pretrial filings and displays.
With that aim now met, we had been centered on our obligations to our individuals — a lot of whom had been set to testify, once they would recount trauma attributable to the threats, violence and hate surfaced by lies about Dominion. I’d already seen a few of them undergo emotionally throughout their depositions, and I fearful deeply {that a} trial and related media consideration would trigger solely extra lasting ache.
The settlement we negotiated achieved two crucial targets: permitting our workers and prospects to maneuver ahead, and hitting Fox the place it harm most — its checking account.
What was lacking was an apology, so I actually drafted one for it that I assumed can be acceptable to incorporate. After I learn it to my enterprise associate, he requested what I thought of mandating Fox challenge an apology that may be compelled, insincere and restricted. At that second, I threw my draft within the rubbish.
An hour later, when the Fox board permitted the wire cost for $787.5 million — one of many largest recognized defamation settlements in historical past — Fox acknowledged what we would have liked it to acknowledge: spreading false claims comes with an enormous price ticket.
Even so, nothing can ever totally compensate for what occurred. The stain on my firm’s repute and our workers’ and prospects’ emotional scars can solely fade. They received’t ever vanish.
If we might, we’d commerce all of it in a heartbeat to return in time to get our repute again. However I take solace in the truth that the general public has seen the big mountain of proof proving what Fox did, and Fox paid dearly for it.
Our settlement with Fox is only one win on an extended street. We now have six extra defamation instances pending: in opposition to Mike Lindell and his firm, MyPillow; Rudy Giuliani; Sidney Powell; Patrick Byrne; One America Information Community; and Newsmax. We won’t cease till we maintain all events to full account.
By the way in which, it’s by no means too late for an apology. And if in the future it comes of Fox’s personal volition, we’ll realize it was actual.
