Fox News to pay $787.5 million, avoids trial in Dominion defamation lawsuit

We begin our report with a settlement just as Dominion Voting Systems'

defamation

lawsuit

against Fox News began Tuesday, the judge announcing that both sides had reached a settlement. Fox will pay $787.5

million

, less than half of what Dominion was originally demanding for buyout money, ending the case and preventing Fox News from seeing some of its best-known hosts and executives on the stand. Dominion accused Fox News of deliberately spreading lies about its voting machines after the 2020 election. CBS News Scott McFarland has more lawyers than the truth for Dominion Voting Systems celebrated its agreement with Fox News this afternoon by announcing that the company would pay Dominion more than $787

million

.

Today's $787,500,000 settlement represents Vindication and accountability. Lies have consequences. The truth is not known. Red or blue. Dominion had been seeking $1.6 billion in damages from Fox for

defamation

arguing that the company knew that allegations of election fraud aired by its guests and some of its hosts were false and aired an update on Dominion damaging it anyway. Dominion's reputation and business in the process Dominion CEO John Polis Fox has admitted to telling lies about Dominion that caused enormous harm to my company, our employees and the customers we serve, nothing can make up for that truthful information in The media is essential to our democracy.

Fox's lawyers left the court without commenting in a statement. The company did not apologize, although they acknowledged that the court found some of Fox's claims about Dominion to be false with the settlement. Fox News Now

avoids

a six-week

trial

. Fox made a pretty clear deal to avoid the public humiliation of having to send all of its top talent. as well as its top executives in the courtroom. I think they saw the strength of Dominion's case. Dominion's lawyers didn't say if there was anything more to the deal besides money, money is liability and we received it today from Fox and Scott McFarland joins me now.

Scott Dominion originally wanted some kind of public acknowledgment of wrongdoing by Fox. What's going to happen? It's unclear, but it seems like it's not part of the deal whether Fox chooses to create a state that would otherwise ultimately live up to it. We agree with us. who attended much of this case and attended jury selection today waited for opening statements, we believe that, for a fairly austere statement from Fox, a fairly subtle and passive statement that false claims were made, there is no indication, John, there's going to be a huge effusive apologies broadcast on Fox News Airwaves to the Fox News audience any minute now, yes, it reminds me the old mistakes were made as if they had no one behind them, so there's another thing to do. was part of this Scott case, that there was a special review that the judge initiated based on Fox's handling of the evidence in the case in which the special master was announced just hours before the settlement, so is that still Does it exist or disappear with the agreement?

There's a chance the court may still want to review what happened here. Judge Eric Davis' concern is that Fox did not deliver in the discovery process everything that Dominion expected and that Dominion believed he was entitled to, so the court set him in motion. paper today and ordered a special master to review what Fox did or didn't do, ordered Fox to pay for it and set a deadline of May 15, much, if not all, of that could be moot now that There is a resolution and an agreement to the case. but let's be clear, Fox's problems are not the mood or the entire trailer.

There is Smartmatic, another voting machine company that sued them for defamation, but they have sued for over $2.7 billion and John, the experts, are hoping not only for a settlement there as well, but also possibly a settlement with a higher price, of agreement, Scott McFarland, thank you later this hour, one of Dominion's voting systems attorneys will join me to discuss the agreement.