Dominion Lawyer Got Last Word In Mic-Drop Exchange With Rupert Murdoch At Deposition For Blockbuster Case
Dominion Voting Systems Lead Counsel Justin Nelson got the last word in a newly-revealed exchange at Fox News Chairman Rupert Murdoch’s deposition in the case that just settled for a blockbuster sum.
In a stunning turn of events Tuesday afternoon, Fox News agreed to a settlement that included a $787.5 million payout in the defamation suit that was just about to play out in a weeks-long trial, after volumes of damaging revelations were publicized pretrial. The settlement also included a tepid and conspicuously non-apologetic “acknowledgment” of “the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.”
Among the copious reporting on the settlement and its fallout was a new detail from an article by Jeremy Peters and Katie Robertson of The New York Times that says a lot, if not everything, about the way the case turned out.
After the deposition concluded, the general counsel of Fox Corporation, Viet Dinh, tried to reassure Mr. Murdoch that he had done well.
“I’m just going to say it. They didn’t lay a finger on you,” Mr. Dinh said.
Mr. Murdoch disagreed, according to a person who witnessed the exchange. He pointed a finger at the lawyer who had questioned him for Dominion, Mr. Nelson, and said, “I think he would strongly disagree with that.”
To which Mr. Nelson replied, “Indeed, I do.”
The Murdoch deposition was among the volumes of damaging evidence that was already compiled before the trial, and was bombshell news at the time by virtue of the fact that he admitted — among other things — that Fox News hosts “endorsed at times this false notion of a stolen election” rather than merely reporting what others were saying.
Thanks to a ruling just weeks ago, Murdoch would have been forced to testify had the trial commenced beyond the hours needed to reach Tuesday’s settlement, as would other Fox execs and personalities. The settlement saved Murdoch from another grilling under oath by Nelson and his team.
