Court records show political pressure behind Fox programming

President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were trying to stop West Virginia Republicans from nominating Don Blankenship, who was convicted of violating mine safety standards during a lethal accident in one of his coal mines, to challenge the state's incumbent senator, Democrat Joe Manchin.

"Both Trump and McConnell are appealing for help to beat unelectable former mine owner who served time," Murdoch wrote to Fox News executives, according to court records released this week. "Anything during day helpful, but Sean (Hannity) and Laura (Ingraham) dumping on him hard might save the day."

Court documents in a defamation lawsuit by a voting systems company show how Fox, the most watched cable news network in the U.S., became actively involved in politics instead of simply reporting or offering opinions about it. The revelations pose a challenge to Fox's credibility.

Blankenship, who ended up losing the primary, said in an interview Wednesday that he felt the change right away, with the network's coverage taking a harsher turn in the final hours before the primary.

"They were very smart about elections — they did their dumping the day before the election, so I had no time to react," said Blankenship, who filed a separate, unsuccessful libel suit against Fox.

On Wednesday, the network characterized Dominion Voting Systems' lawsuit as an attack on the First Amendment and said the company took statements out of context. According to Fox, that included an acknowledgement by Murdoch that he shared with Jared Kushner, the head of Trump's reelection campaign and the president's son-in-law, an ad for Joe Biden's presidential campaign that was to air on his network. Fox said the ad was already publicly available on YouTube and at least one television station.

"Dominion has been caught red handed again using more distortions and misinformation in their PR campaign to smear Fox News and trample on freedom of speech and freedom of the press," Fox said.

Dominion sued after it became the target of 2020 election conspiracy theories often promoted on Fox's airwaves.

Murdoch also told executives at Fox News to promote the benefits of Trump's 2017 tax cut legislation and give extra attention to Republican Senate hopefuls, the documents show. He wanted the network "banging on" Biden's low-profile presidential campaign during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Nicole Hemmer, a Vanderbilt University history professor and author of the book "Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s," said the lawsuit punctures Fox's long argument that there is a dividing line between its news and opinion sides.

"The real revelation here is how much of a fiction that division is," Hemmer said. "Some who know Fox have argued that for awhile, but now we have real evidence."

Hemmer cited text messages disclosed in the court documents from early November 2020 sent by Fox's chief political correspondent, Bret Baier, urging the network's leaders to retract its correct election night call that President Joe Biden won Arizona. Baier advocated for putting Arizona "back in his column," referring to Trump.

As Trump was making wild allegations of election fraud, Rupert Murdoch's son Lachlan Murdoch, executive chairman of the Fox Corp., texted with Fox News chief executive officer Suzanne Scott about a Trump rally.

"News guys have to be careful how they cover this rally," Lachlan Murdoch wrote, according to the legal documents. "So far some of the side comments are slightly anti, and they shouldn't be. The narrative should be this huge celebration of the president. Etc."

After the first presidential debate in 2020, a "horrified" Murdoch told Kushner that Trump should be more restrained in the next debate; Trump canceled that event.

"That was advice from a friend to a friend," Murdoch said in his deposition. "It wasn't advice from Fox Corporation or in my capacity at Fox."

"What's the difference?" asked Dominion's lawyer, Justin A. Turner.

"You've been — keep asking me questions as head of Fox," Murdoch said. "It's a different role being a friend."

Murdoch's email banter with Kushner led to the Sept. 25, 2020, exchange of the Biden ad that is now the subject of a complaint from the liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America to the Federal Elections Commission, arguing Fox made an illegal contribution to the Trump campaign by giving it information about Biden's advertisements. Fox said the sharing of public information can't be considered a contribution.

Murdoch, in the deposition, also cited his personal friendship with an unnamed Senate candidate in his suggestion to Scott that the network give extra attention to Republicans in close Senate races.

After Fox business anchor Lou Dobbs was critical of Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Murdoch asked Scott to have star host Sean Hannity pump up Graham, who was facing an extremely well-funded challenge from Democrat Jamie Harrison.

"You probably know about the Lou Dobbs outburst against Lindsay Graham," Murdoch wrote on Oct. 27, the senator's first name misspelled in the copy of the message in the court documents. "Could Sean say something supportive? We can't lose the Senate if at all possible."

Scott replied that Graham was on Hannity's show the previous night. She added, "I addressed the Dobbs outburst."