Release the Kraken: Fox News’ Revolving Sidney Powell Conspiracy Theory Door
It does Dominion Systems no good, in their defamation lawsuit against Fox News and Fox Corporation, to prove that Sidney Powell was a long-time Fox News commentator. They are suing Fox for defamation based on Fox’ platforming of Sidney Powell after the time the Murdoch outlet had internally recognized her as a bullshit artist, not during the time when she routinely showed up to lie about another topic — Mike Flynn’s innocence.
That explains why that prehistory, the long period when Powell was just another personality on Fox News, doesn’t appear in Dominion’s motion for summary judgement or its response to Fox’s MSJ.
What appears, instead, are two inflammatory claims which — taken together — may be as important as the billion dollar lawsuit and the sordid truth about Fox that Dominion has aired as part of it.
First, as Dominion lays out in response to Fox’s attempt to blame Trump for all the outrageous false claims about Dominion, Fox started it,
Fox went beyond the claims that Rudy Giuliani made in court, and Fox aired Sidney Powell’s false claims before she made those claims in court (which is one reason why, Dominion argues, Fox can’t simply claim they were covering newsworthy lawsuits).
Dominion lays out a timeline showing that Powell didn’t make any of the allegedly defamatory claims again Dominion in court until November 25, after Fox had floated them in 12 of the claimed instances of defamation.
As Giuliani himself told the court in one Pennsylvania lawsuit brought by the campaign, the lawsuit is not a fraud case. See Donald J. Trump for President,Inc.v.Sec’y ofPennsylvania,830 Fed.Appx. 377,382 ( Cir. 2020). Or to quote the headline of a November 23,2020 Wall Street Journal article: “Trump Cries Voter Fraud. In Court, His Lawyers Don’t.” Ex.702. Only Powell’s lawsuits, the earliest of which was filed on November 25 (after she had been disavowed by the Trump campaign), made allegations along the lines of the defamatory statements accused in this case allegations that Fox had been broadcasting for weeks before Powell’slawsuits were filed.9
The facts about the cases Fox focuses on are as follows:
November 7: The Trump campaign files an Arizona election challenge alleging defects in the ballots and poll worker deviation from protocols, not a technological failure of vote tabulation machines. See generally Ex.C1. Dominion is not mentioned.
November 11: The Trump campaign files a challenge to results in Antrim County. The gravamen of the complaint is interference with Republican election observers, disputes about voter eligibility, and ballots being run through tabulating machines multiple times–not mechanical tabulation errors. See Ex.C227-60. The complaint concedes that the Secretary of State found that the Antrim error was a result of the failure of a county clerk to properly update media drives, and does not allege any intentional misconduct by Dominion. See id. 60-62.
November 13: Lin Wood files a Georgia election contest, challenging certain changes in Georgia’s election laws. See Ex.C425-50. The lawsuit was not filed on behalf of the President or his campaign, nor does it make any misconduct allegations against Dominion or even mention Dominion by name.
November 17: Lin Wood files an affidavit in his Georgia lawsuit alleging certain misconduct by Smartmatic (not Dominion). The affidavit was irrelevant to the subject matter of the underlying suit, and was never filed in any case brought by the Trump campaign. Ex.C5.
November 25: More than two weeks after Fox first gave her a platform to promote her conspiracy theories, and days after the campaign expressly disavowed her, Powell files lawsuits in Georgia and Michigan. These lawsuits parrot the lies amplified by Powell and others on Fox. Exs.C8-C9.
December 1& 2: Powell files two more lawsuits in Wisconsin and Arizona–repeating the false allegations against Dominion. Exs.C11-C12. [italics my emphasis]
More importantly, Dominion lays out that Fox had Powell on to float these allegedly defamatory claims before Trump embraced them. Dominion suggests that having Trump embrace them was part of luring Trump back to the network.
It is also belied by the record for at least four reasons :(1) President Trump followed lead, making the same allegations against Dominion only after Fox had made them; (2) Sidney Powell was not on the President’s legal team when she started making the Dominion allegations and was disavowed after being associated with that team for at most 8 days; (3)Powell received some of her information via Fox hosts,who then laundered the lies by hosting her on their shows; and (4) neither Trump nor his campaign ever filed a lawsuit alleging the at-issue statements.
First, Fox’s own recitation of the timeline of Trump tweets establishes that Fox went first, Trump went second. On November 7, 2020, President Trump retweeted a report of Georgia using the same machines as Antrim County. Ex.G6. Notably Trump did not name Dominion, and certainly did not accuse Dominion of participating in an election-rigging conspiracy. The Trump campaign then filed a lawsuit on November 11 regarding the events in Antrim County that merely asserted there had been a “glitch” in the Dominion software. Ex.C2 . It was not until November 12 that Trump first made any allegations about Dominion intentionally switching votes, which he did via a tweet crediting OAN’s reporting. See Ex.G6 p.3. Though this tweet refers to OAN, it demonstrated Trump could be pulled back to Fox–provided the network broadcast what he wanted to hear. Indeed, later that same day, Trump tweeted his approval of Fox hosts attacking Dominion, telling his followers that they “[m]ust see @seanhannity takedown of the horrible, inaccurate and anything but secure Dominion Voting System which is used in States where tens of thousands of votes were stolen from us and given to Biden. Likewise, the great @LouDobbs has a confirming and powerful piece!” Ex.683. From here on out, Trump had Dominion in his sights.
Dominion argues that what got Trump to start attacking Dominion was seeing Fox focus on the claims of fraud; it suggests Fox was airing those claims of fraud to appease Trump.
What changed between November 7 and November 12? Fox entered the fray. Specifically, on November 8 Maria Bartiromo brought Powell onto her show to air the false claim that Dominion machines used an algorithm to calculate the votes that they would need to flip. Ex.A2 p.15. The Fox platform gave Powell the stamp of credibility, and reach, needed to spread the lies about Dominion. And while Trump was widely known to be a voracious consumer of Fox, Bartiromo did not leave anything to chance. [three lines redacted]
These redacted lines suggest that Bartiromo spoke with the Trump campaign directly to highlight these false claims; in the earlier filing, Bartiromo told Powell, “I just spoke to Eric [Trump] & told him you have very imp[ortant] info.” In that same reference, the filing revealed that Bartiromo “also provided information directly to Powell,” suggested that Bartiromo was a go-between between Powell and the campaign.
But that’s not the craziest part.
The crazy part — which is only clear from reading both Dominion’s recent filings — is that Fox got Trump to disavow Sidney Powell.
Remember how this looked in real time. After the embarrassing Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference, the campaign publicly distanced itself from Powell on November 22.
Here’s the explanation offered by Maggie Haberman at the time.
According to Dominion, however, after Powell came after Tucker Carlson, Raj Shah — who used to work as a spox in Trump’s White House — inquired about her status with Trump. He learned two days before Rudy made a show of publicly ousting her from the campaign that she never worked for the campaign.
Second, Fox ignores what it knew better than the public at the time: Powell was never officially on the Trump campaign’s legal team, having never signed an engagement agreement. Ex.605, Shah 246 :4-12; id. 273:11-20. When Fox was finally motivated to get to the bottom of the relationship between Powell and Trump (which only happened after Powell came after one of Fox’s own, Tucker Carlson), it took Fox but a day or so to get the truth. See, e.g.,infra pp.163-164.
[snip]
Shah believed the Decision Desk got the Arizona call right (see,e.g.,Ex.725);that the November 19,2020,press conference featuring Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani was not credible ,including the claims about Dominion (see, e.g., Ex.605 , Shah 214 :21-215 :7); see also Ex.726 ( crazy fucking presser );and that Sidney Powell was generally nuts (Ex.727).
Yet Shah did nothing when on or around November 20,2020, he learned that Sidney Powell never had a retention agreement with Trump or his campaign. This was explosive news. For several weeks Shah’s network had been airing false allegations from Powell, in part, so they say now, because she was the President’s lawyer. But upon learning that she was not the President’s lawyer what did Shah do? Effectively nothing. See Ex.605, Shah 297:18-298:2. [italics my emphasis]
Fox learned that Sidney Powell never had a retention agreement with the Trump campaign, but still covered her, purportedly, based on the claim that what she did for the campaign was newsworthy.
It’s these two comments that are particularly interesting though: Fox brought her on and off the campaign, and had a role in her conspiracy theories.
And while Powell appeared on Fox only four times when she was even arguably part of the President’s team, and six times when Fox was clearly aware that she was not. As important, Fox was instrumental in maneuvering Powell both into the Trump campaign and then out of it.
Third, Fox ignores its own role in developing the conspiracy theories it then aired See Dom. MSJ pp.39-44
These two claims — that Fox “maneuvered Powell … out of” the Trump campaign and that they played a role in developing these conspiracy theories, are discussed in heavily redacted passages of the earlier filing (probably redacted because Fox has claimed it pertains to internal business deliberations).
The first — describing how Fox “maneuvered Powell … out of” the Trump campaign after Tucker came under fire for questioning Powell — consists of almost four full paragraphs introduced with a description that Fox, including Tucker and Raj Shah, “mobilized.”
“We won the battle with Powell. Thank god,” the passage quotes a Tucker text later. Dominion is now explaining that that “battle” pertained to getting Powell ousted from Trump’s orbit.
The second claim — that Fox was the source of some of these conspiracy theories — incorporates the description of how Fox got Powell ousted from the campaign, but also includes redacted passages describing Lou Dobbs’ role in “promoting the narrative,” another making a redacted reference to Hannity, as well as the unredacted reference to Bartiromo chasing an email from Sidney Powell that Powell herself said relied on a “wackadoodle” source. The later filing suggests the earlier filing goes as far as saying that Fox played part in developing the conspiracy theories.
To be sure: Fox’s real-time knowledge that Sidney Powell never had a formal relationship with Trump and Tucker’s [apparent] role in getting her ousted from Trump’s orbit are critically important for Dominion’s case that Fox properties continued to air her conspiracy theories, falsely claiming to do so because they reflected Trump’s strategy, are both crucial pieces of evidence in their case that Fox knew they were allowing Powell to make false claims on their shows.
But they are important for another reason: because Jack Smith is investigating at least one and possibly two (the Sidney Powell investigation that went overt in September 2021) prongs based on claims that the people raising money were knowingly lying.
Fox likely still has no criminal exposure for the campaign finance violations that Smith is investigating (though the report that Rupert gave Jared confidential information on Biden’s ads may give Smith reason to look more closely).
But, as I noted after the last filing, all this material about what Fox was being told by Trump’s team is directly relevant to those suspicions of fraud.
It’s not just that Dominion has laid out damning evidence that Fox knowingly and falsely accused it of fraud. But discovery in this suit appears to have produced abundant evidence that the campaign itself knew it was recycling fraudulent claims Fox was peddling to keep Trump loyal.
Fox may have no more than this civil exposure. But Dominion lays out plenty of evidence that Fox was part of Trump’s suspected fraud on his own voters.
IANAL.
“Fox may have no more than this civil exposure. But Dominion lays out plenty of evidence that Fox was part of Trump’s suspected fraud on his own voters.”
Does this evidence set up both Fox and Dominion to take legal action against Trump and Powell on top of the DOJ/Jack Smith investigation?
IANAL, but it would seem to this layperson that Faux has unclean hands because it chose to do what it did knowingly. It would seem pretty hard to show harm to Rupert’s network aside from what Dominion (and Smartmatic etc.) will potentially extract from his company’s wallet.
Dominion on the other hand could certainly expand the defendant list since they didn’t conspire / collude / connive by whatever legal term gets used and can show actual financial harm as they are in the present case.
One of the reasons this has had as much traction as it does is because of all of the communications around that showed the network and hosts knew they were peddling lies. I’m not so sure there are going to be those communications available to Dominion for Individual-1 or Powell.
Dominion assigning the responsibility of Trump jettisoning Powell to Fox could potentially work in Fox’s favor: “we had to responsibly give time to allegations as they were coming to light and being investigated, but we concluded she was a loon and made sure POTUS knew that before she could cause any real damage for them.”
Nevermind they stumbled onto the right answer for the wrong reason, if they are presented as the Perseus who slew the Powell Kraken, they may exploit that narrative.
It might be hard to claim that when they continued to give her credulous coverage https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2020/12/01/sidney-powell-trump-fox/
One reason it *should* get more traction: How clear Dominion’s filings make it that Fox, and especially the executives, saw their mission as advancing GOP candidates. On pp. 148-149 of the new response, references are made to Lindsey Graham’s and Don Blankenship’s campaigns–this in addition to Rupert Murdoch in the earlier filing talking about helping Perdue and Loeffler in the Georgia special senate elections (they lost).
This is the definition of a propaganda arm.
No.
Dominion filed suit against Powell in 2021, and that case is ongoing: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/29090821/us-dominion-inc-v-powell/
Powell attempted to countersue, and the judge dismissed it (doc #74).
Thank you for your work!
Murdochs in a Row
Now it’s own sport a big affront,
Murdochs in a row give a grunt,
Where was the Fox in the hunt:
Circling round to avoid the brunt.
Dominion steady, and now blunt
takes its stand against the stunt,
Gathering hounds with their runt:
Stay the course! Avoid the punt!
Your rhyming skills are excellent,
And Rupert’s always been a dodgy c**t.
I’d rather avoid this mess and smoke a blunt.
Yes, that’s the only thing that can get you to listen to “this mess” with a smile.
[FYI – For your personal security I have reverted your username on this comment to the one you’ve used most often; I have a sneaking suspicion you didn’t intend to use a RL name. Let me know if that’s not the case. /~Rayne]
It seems to me, after reading EW’s brilliant post, that when Fox hosts and executives expressed a mortal fear of losing their audience to Newmax and OANN, they meant their Audience of Individual One–the president they felt they had created and whose “policies” they certainly shaped. Luring Trump back with the Dominion libel must have felt, at least briefly, like a triumph. And with Trump back on board, his followers would return too.
Rupert Murdoch seems too eager to reveal the money motive behind all this (it’s not about red or blue, but “green”). He was happy to throw Dobbs and Bartiromo under the bus under the guise of “business” judgment. But he and his son have plenty of money; what’s at stake now is power. Controlling reality without regard to truth represents Godlike power, and chalking up this gambit to business, however ruthless, is merely a legal gambit.
Is it illegal to mislead people for a profit motive when the result is social unrest?
Nope, not per se.
More than social unrest, imo.
Two phrases grabbed me and forced me to keep reading.
As soon as I read this, I knew the rest of the post was going to be good.
I was right.
Cue the old Ron Popiel infomercials. “How much would you pay? Don’t answer yet!”
(Yes, I’m old. Don’t make me get out my slide rule and prove it.)
But all this only leads me to say that the mostest whackiest craziest part of all is yet to be revealed. Just when you think you’ve hit bottom, you discover that there is always — ALWAYS! — more crazy to be found if you dig a little more.
But wait, there’s more!
Get out yer Veg-O-Matic
“It slices! It dices!”
Lol, I actually bought one for my mom for Christmas when I was a kid. She never used it very much.
…but she knew you loved her!
I may as well gotten her a Pocket Fisherman.
late OT: Wait, what – KD is on the Suns now? LOL after all the hand-wringing about going back to Golden State.
First game is tonight at Hornets!
OK, see y’all in the playoffs?
That would be fun. But Dubs getting Curry back too, and are still scary.
Ah the Ronco infomercials! Reminds me of the time my older sister tried to pierce my ears with a Buttoneer.
Ouch!
My grandfather was an inventor and a small business owner in the printing industry. My father, not so much. But he had a fascination with the Buttoneer. He used to pass them out to prospective clients and to waitresses and nurses he happened to meet, much to the chagrin of one of his own sons.
“It makes mounds of French fries.”
How much would you pay to see Donald Trump sporting some of Ron Popiel’s spray on hair? How would we know?
I almost forgot about Stephen Miller.
heh. That was a freebie.
Mmmm….that’s good bass.
I always enjoyed Bloom County’s Opus and the Ronco Turnip Twaddler adventures.
I wonder how this quote from the more recent Dominion filing fits in:
“As FC Executive Raj Shah told Lachlan Murdoch, Suzanne Scott, and Viet Dinh on November 23 when they successfully lobbied the White House to disavow Sidney Powell, these claims were “outlandish”. Ex.163 .” (p.7, pdf p.22).
Some great comments here, apropos the bizarro, absurdist subject matter.
Wish that Vonnegut were here to witness this.
In an interview on CNN, Baltimore Sun media critic, David Zurawik, apparently characterized Fox News as a “prisoner” of its own ever more extreme viewers, who generate its profits and political power. An improbable assessment, given that its owners seem to pursue the most profitable course, regardless of consequences.
One might be a prisoner to the private equity investor you let in and gave a seat to on your board. But are BMW or Toyota “prisoners” of their customers? Is Len Leo a prisoner of the Supreme Court and the federal bench, even before he glommed onto a $1.6 billion charitable gift to pursue his hard right-wing politics? Is the NYT a prisoner of its progressive readership or its owners’ politics? Journalists can do better, even media critics.
https://www.rawstory.com/fox-news-dominion-lawsuit-2659484429/
As an employee of a very large global company, I can attest that customers do influence strategy in both positive and negative ways. It can be very difficult to make new investments when most of your funding is needed by the old business cases.
“Pick-your-customers” is definitely a key element of business success. GOP and Fox made their choices (the Southern strategy). It’s been a good ride for a while. But you can’t govern a democracy if your base is the losing side of a civil war (or a religious war). You have to turn to authoritarianism.
I had hoped that Trump would blowup the GOP/Fox business case, but I didn’t reckon on the strong desire for authoritarianism.
When you sell, say, 10% of your sales to a single customer, sure. When it’s Walmart, even more so. It’s also true for many pig and chicken farmers, who are so wrapped around complex contract terms that they are fundamentally service providers rather than sellers of a product. But I don’t see that dynamic applying to Fox vs. its viewership.
Interesting DOJ / J6 [Cheney’s emphasis]:
https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1631141135690203137
10:55 PM · Mar 1, 2023
Thanks, harpie! I’ve been wondering if Sorelle would be joined with others. Now I know. I have no idea what it means, though. It probably doesn’t mean anything, but James Beeks wanted Armes (who gave war game plan and map to Eryka Gemma Flores) to room with him in DC. But Armes was not interested.
Oliver Darcy expects RUPERT will fire SCOTT “over Fox News’ election lies scandal“:
https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1631152442283900928
11:40 PM · Mar 1, 2023
[They dragged] KELLYANNE [out of mothballs] on FOX [HANNITY] last night [VIDEO here]: https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1631121938625056770
9:39 PM · Mar 1, 2023
OMG!
OK, KELLYANNE, I challenge you to tell us the TRUTH about this:
9/21/17 Kellyanne CONWAY sells her polling company. She has been playing a key role in advocating for Leonard LEO’s handpicked list of Supreme Court candidates. Also, “a lawyer files liens with Virginia regulators listing collateral for two loans: one for the buyer of Conway’s company and the other for a dark money group controlled by LEO, BH Fund. The liens were filed within five minutes of each other.” [Politico]
[See my comment, here]
https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/12/19/house-january-6-committee-introductory-material-to-the-final-report/#comment-975843
Intersecting articles from yesterday:
Kellyanne Conway Meets With Prosecutors as Trump Inquiry Escalates The Manhattan district attorney’s office is scrutinizing the former president’s role in the hush money payment to a porn star. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/01/nyregion/kellyanne-conway-stormy-daniels-trump-inquiry.html 3/1/23
There’s more about LEONARD’s BH GROUP, here:
Dark money and special deals: How Leonard Leo and his friends benefited from his judicial activism The Federalist Society co-chairman’s lifestyle took a lavish turn after he became Donald Trump’s adviser on judicial nominations. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/01/dark-money-leonard-leo-judicial-activism-00084864 3/1/23
“Former THOMAS law clerk” sighting:
Lol, Carrie Severino has been a jackass from the moment her name was ever known.
LEO is also involved in this:
Conservatives Have a New Rallying Cry: Down With ESG A Federalist Society veteran [LEONARD LEO] is heading up a multimillion-dollar effort to push anti-ESG messaging and legislation https://www.wsj.com/articles/conservatives-have-a-new-rallying-cry-down-with-esg-2ef98725 []
Unsurprising but shameful, as if the right any longer knew what that means. ESG was often corporate propaganda to cover corporations that continued to trash the environment. But at least it was a recognition they ought to do something – and some did.
Now big money pays shits like Leo to say the quiet part out loud: “We no longer want to pay even lip service to anything that restrains our profit-taking. All else be damned.”
Thanks, harpie! Leonard Leo is the hub of the dark money wheel (or the hubcap, since his role is concealment). You have been doing such a great job pulling thread together, which is exactly what they don’t want us rubes to do. Sheldon Whitehouse has given this confluence a higher profile lately too. I continue to wait for the phrase “donor class” to enter the lexicon–pejoratively, of course.
Haha! That’s so meta, it’s like a bottomless, boundless black hole of irony.
Media Matters filed a complaint with the FEC over Rupert Murdoch sharing confidential information with Jared Kushner https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/media-matters-filed-complaint-fec-over-rupert-murdoch-sharing-confidential-information 03/03/23
Complaint: https://www.scribd.com/document/629221690/Fox-News-Biden-Ad-Info-FEC-Complaint-Mar-2023-1#
Via Anne Nelson’s twitter:
Steve Bannon declares war on Fox News: ‘You’ve disrespected Donald J. Trump long enough’ The Trump ally ripped the Murdoch family as “foreigners” in a speech at CPAC. The broadsides came as Trump and his allies have soured on Fox News.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna73328 March 3, 2023, 6:09 PM
[BANNON is a sponsor of CPAC.] [I think TRUMP will be speaking there today]
BANNON at CPAC, yesterday
Here’s a VIDEO from ACYN:
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1631770462685642753
4:36 PM · Mar 3, 2023
Remember BANNON works FOR and WITH GUO Wengui.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1632148530549719041
5:38 PM · Mar 4, 2023
5:33 PM [FOX News chyron:]
Former President Donald Trump speaks at CPAC
Then RUPAR goes back to NewsMax…LOL!
RUPAR’s THREAD at 6:01 PM · Mar 4, 2023
Here’s the beginning of Aaron RUPAR’s VIDEO thread of
BANNON at CPAC, yesterday:
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1631769083031977986
4:30 PM · Mar 3, 2023
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1631772922514661380
4:45 PM · Mar 3, 2023 [VIDEO] [Notice the “Chinese [] bioweapon”]
“Brought peace to the world” – LOL!
The whole thing by Bannon is LOL.
He actually makes it sound like they’re all drug addicts who desperately need a fix of “Donald J. TRUMP”.
But they need that fix to come from FOX,
because it’s the one with the reach.
A little slow foxtrot music for the Fox fix reach:
“Take This Love And Bury It”
https://youtu.be/JTDghMm_DwU
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1631769376813621249
4:31 PM · Mar 3, 2023
BANNON’s still upset about this, because
he had plans for TRUMP to just declare victory on election night,
and he’s keeping his RABBLE ROUSED.
Actually, it was GUO’s and BANNON’s “New Federal State of China” that is a “partnering sponsor” of this year’s CPAC. [See screenshot here]:
https://twitter.com/seth_hettena/status/1631456139572572161
7:47 PM · Mar 2, 2023
https://web.archive.org/web/20230304145217/https://twitter.com/seth_hettena/status/1631456139572572161
https://twitter.com/dfriedman33/status/1631735838018076672
2:18 PM · Mar 3, 2023
Links to:
https://motherjones.com/politics/2022/02/guo-wengui-miles-guo-gettr-steve-bannon/
6/4/20 BANNON and GUO create The New Federal State of China (NFSC) as a political movement or lobby group.
[From Wikipedia] The New Federal State of China (NFSC) is a political movement or lobby group created by Guo Wengui and Steve Bannon, with the stated aim of overthrowing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as the Chinese government. Launched on June 4, 2020, [6/20/20] in New York City, the body has been referred to by its founders as a “government in exile” of China.]
Link to Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Federal_State_of_China
During the 2020 election, I noticed a very strange and sudden increase in references to “CCP”.
For example, it was a BIG schtick with Alex JONES, et al., and STONE.
2/27/20 BANNON is interviewed on GUO’s [Chinese language] G News;
https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/steve-bannon-gave-interview-conspiracy-site-linked-his-billionaire-benefactor []
Yeah, that’s going to work so well.
Inside the Panic at Fox News After the 2020 Election “If we hadn’t called Arizona,” said Suzanne Scott, the network’s chief executive, according to a recording reviewed by The New York Times, “our ratings would have been bigger.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/04/us/politics/panic-fox-news-2020-election.html
Peter Baker March 4, 2023
OMG! I was fascinated that on NewsMax, [where RUPAR followed TRUMP’s speech to CPAC]
hokey ads popped up regularly. This is about one of those,
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1632167608714657792
6:54 PM · Mar 4, 2023
At the beginning of that clip until about 0:25, there’s an AD:
So, I look up “American Hartford Gold”, and get:
https[colon]//offers[dot]americanhartfordgold[dot]com/search-gold-industry-leader/ []
The banner photo on that page: Bill O’REILLY and Rudy GIULIANI.
After a little more googling, from Media Matters on 12/15/20:
Newsmax has been sending sponsored messages stating that readers should invest in gold because Biden will be president
https://www.mediamatters.org/newsmax/newsmax-has-been-sending-sponsored-messages-stating-readers-should-invest-gold-because
12/3/20 NewsMax sends SPONSORED message to MediaMatters:
12/7/20 NewsMax sends SPONSORED message to MediaMatters:
12/11/20 NewsMax sends SPONSORED message to MediaMatters:
12/13/20 NewsMax sends SPONSORED message to MediaMatters:
12/15/20 MediaMatters:
Newsmax has been sending sponsored messages stating that readers should invest in gold because Biden will be president https://www.mediamatters.org/newsmax/newsmax-has-been-sending-sponsored-messages-stating-readers-should-invest-gold-because []
I really think Fox needs to apologize to all its fans who it tricked with it’s known election lies as part of a sleazy advertising campaign. This includes people like Ashli Babbitt, who might not have been brainwashed into attacking a police barricade if Fox had just played the news business straight. Or you might say fair and balanced. Justice for Ashli