Dominion Voting Systems on Wednesday repeated its request that Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch be among witnesses compelled to testify in its $1.6bn defamation suit against Fox News.
The Fox Corporation chairman, 92, and his oldest son, the chief executive, were not among potential witnesses for this month’s trial named by Fox in a letter on Tuesday.
The next day, Dominion told the judge in the case, Eric M Davis, that Fox had previously conceded the Murdochs, former US House speaker Paul Ryan (a Fox board member) and Viet Dinh (Fox’s chief legal and policy officer) could be compelled to testify live.
In a series of explosive court filings, messages sent by both Murdochs, other executives and leading Fox News hosts have been revealed to the public by the Dominion case.
The company says the messages show Fox News broadcast conspiracy theories and lies about its work on US elections, pushed by Donald Trump and his allies in their attempt to overturn his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden, despite knowing such claims to be untrue.
Fox contends that it was presenting allegations made by public figures which reasonable viewers would not take for statements of fact.
It also claims that victory for Dominion would chill press and free speech protections under the first amendment to the US constitution.
In its letter on Wednesday, Dominion said it planned “to bring all of the witnesses Fox lists in its letter live in its case”.
Such witnesses include the Fox News chief executive, Suzanne Scott; opinion hosts Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Maria Bartiromo and Lou Dobbs; and the news anchors Bret Baier and Dana Perino.
