Fox News and its Fox Corporation parent company do not need to issue a formal apology to Dominion Voting Systems or have show hosts address false voter fraud claims under the terms of a massive financial settlement the two sides reached Tuesday, according to a Fox Corp.
Dominion attorney Stephen Shackleford asserted at a news conference following the settlement announcement that “money is accountability and we got that today from Fox,” though the Dominion team ignored questions shouted from reporters asking whether billionaire Fox Corp.
Dominion repeatedly made court filings suggesting top Fox News hosts didn’t believe fraud claims but aired them anyway—one filing revealed Carlson sent text messages calling the fraud assertions “insane” and “absurd,” and another showed Murdoch conceding some high-profile Fox News hosts had endorsed false voter fraud claims even as he insisted the company didn’t back the theories.
Fox faces a similar lawsuit from voting machine company Smartmatic, which is seeking $2.7 billion in damages.