Former Attorney General William Barr has been subpoenaed in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, brought by the election systems company last year against the network over claims that the company rigged the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Barr has given deposition testimony to the January 6th Committee in which he said that the claims of election fraud were without merit.
In its lawsuit, Dominion contends that Fox News personalities and guests continued to amplify election fraud claims even after elections officials and Barr said that there was no evidence of widespread fraud. Barr told the Associated Press on Dec. 1, 2020 that they had not seen “anything to substantiate” allegations that election machines were programmed “essentially to skew the election results.”
Barr’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fox News has defended its post-election coverage as protected by the First Amendment, arguing that the fraud allegations, championed by President Donald Trump, were in the public interest.
The network said in a statement, “We are confident we will prevail as freedom of the press is foundational to our democracy and must be protected, in addition to the damages claims being outrageous, unsupported and not rooted in sound financial analysis, serving as nothing more than a flagrant attempt to deter our journalists from doing their jobs.”
Dominion also is seeking to subpoena Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state who testified at a recent January 6th Committee hearing, as well as Chris Krebs, who was director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The company also filed to subpoena James Murdoch, the son of Rupert Murdoch, who left the board of News Corp. in 2020, citing “disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions.” Murdoch also is not on the board of Fox Corp., the parent company of Fox News.
Last month, Judge Eric M. Davis refused to dismiss as separate lawsuit that Dominion filed against Fox Corp.