Fox Begs Judge To BAN Any Mention Of Capitol Riot During Defamation Trial

Lawyers for Fox News filed a motion in court last week, begging the judge to ban any mention of the Capitol Riot along with the threats that Dominion workers received from Trump supporters during the upcoming defamation trial. Fox claims that these aren't relevant to the case, but that's actually not true - in order for Dominion to prove certain damages, they have to be able to show that the lies from the network had consequences across the board. Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Fox News's Lawyers filed a motion last week in court begging the judge to ban any mention of both the Capitol Riot and the continued threats that Dominion Voting System employees have received in the upcoming Dominion Defamation lawsuit that Fox News is facing. So here's what Fox News said in the filing. Any reference to the Capitol Riot will only unfairly prejudice the jury against Fox Inflamed passions, prevent a fair trial in taint any resulting verdict, raw story reports. Fox News is also asking that the judge prohibit any references to threats sent to Dominion workers claiming that while those threats are horrific and absolutely inexcusable, they would quote, arouse the jury's sympathy and provoke a desire to punish Fox for the actions of unrelated third parties.

But there are no unrelated third parties here, Fox. And you know that because here's what happens. Sure, there's unrelated third parties that exist, but once your words about this company make these people call this company, do you see how that creates a direct relationship? Suddenly your viewers, okay, you got you, you got your viewers, you got Dominion, you say Bad things about Dominion. These people hear it. These people then call up Dominion and say, we're going to kill you. They did that because of your lies about the company. And yeah, by the way, that is 100% relevant in a defamation trial. That is actually one of the best ways to prove material damage to a company that has been defamed. Not to mention, as Dominion pointed out here, central, uh, to almost every element of this case. Uh, the threats are a consequence of the defamation as people are unlikely to wanna work for a company that is besieged by death threats.

And it also became incredibly difficult for Dominion to retain and win business because would-be customers themselves are inundated with death threats, harassments and protests. So that is 100% relevant to this particular case. Now, on the Capitol Riot stuff, I I, I almost hate to say this, I kind of agree. I don't think it should be banned. Like I do not think it should be banned from trial, but I do agree with Fox that like, okay, the Capitol Riot stuff, however, that is technically not relevant. Um, and, and I know yes, Fox News's Lies helped spur on the Capitol Riot, but Dominion didn't suffer damages from the Capitol Riot. And that is why

I, I, I would agree with them that it is probably not relevant. Um, so they've got a decent enough case with saying Ban any talk of the Capitol Riot banning the death threats that the workers and the contractors are receiving. Like, no, that is 100% relevant. And as Dominion said it, it's not only relevant, it's actually central to our case. Like we have to be able to say these things and show these things in order to make our case. So if you ban us, you may as well ban actual evidence against the company just cuz they don't like it. So my best guess is that the judge is going to allow, uh, the death threats to be mentioned, maybe the Capitol Riot stuff. But even if the Capitol Riot stuff is banned, that's not really going to impact Dominion. Fox News just doesn't want it mentioned because they know how bad it makes them look, which it does, because they've tried to excuse it ever since it happened.

They weren't trying to excuse it behind the scenes. Of course, we know that now. They were texting Mark Meadows, they were trying to get in touch with Trump. They wanted it to stop. This makes us look horrible. But then they immediately went on the air and suggested it was Antifa, that it was, you know, FBI agents implanted in the crowd, whatever it was, but it wasn't. But it's also not necessarily relevant to Dominion as they didn't suffer any specific damages that day that we know of. So unless Dominion can prove that they suffered damages as a result of Fox News stirring up these crazies to go a storm, the capitol that may be thrown out and barred, but the threats against the company, the threats against their employees, that is 100% relevant. And Fox should have to listen to those in that courtroom.