A major defamation lawsuit has begun in the United States surrounding unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. A court in the state of Delaware started proceedings on Tuesday that the voting machine manufacturer Dominion had brought against the Fox News television station. Dominion is demanding around 1.6 billion US dollars (around 1.5 billion euros) in damages in the lawsuit because Fox News had distributed reports of alleged manipulation of the voting machines. The channel’s management invokes freedom of the press and insists that the accounts of then US President Donald Trump and his lawyers were legitimately reproduced as news. Dominion, on the other hand, wants to prove that Fox News intentionally broadcast fake news.
Jury selection was completed on Tuesday. To begin with, they received instructions from the judge. The opening statements of both sides should follow during the day (on the German evening). Cameras were not allowed at the trial. Only the sound was broadcast outside the courtroom.
Dominion had also filed defamation lawsuits against several individuals close to Trump, including attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and businessman Mike Lindell. They had claimed without evidence that Dominion had used the election software to manipulate the vote in favor of Trump’s challenger Joe Biden. However, the lawsuit against Fox News drew particular attention because it involves the foundations and limits of press freedom and the case also revolves around several colorful figures from the media world. The court documents revealed in advance, among other things, that Fox presenters were afraid of losing the audience’s favor if they did not support Trump’s theses of election fraud.
To this day, Trump refuses to admit defeat to Biden. He claims without any evidence that he was deprived of an election victory through fraud. His allies also spread the allegations at the time and filed various lawsuits, all of which failed.
