Fox questions Dominion about the Tucker Carlson email leak.
Racist messages from the presenter, who was the main figure at the news network, reached the press.
Reuters - Fox News on Friday asked lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems to investigate whether they leaked controversial internal messages from former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, which were provided as evidence in his recent defamation lawsuit.
The requests, made in letters released by Fox, came after several media outlets published racist and sexist comments made by Carlson contained in leaked internal messages and recordings.
Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp., said the material was handed over to Dominion as part of a lawsuit alleging that Fox defamed Dominion by spreading false claims of election fraud. The material was supposed to remain confidential under court orders and the terms of the network's $787,5 million settlement with the Denver-based voting technology company last month.
Fox requested that Dominion's lawyers at Farnan LLP "immediately conduct an investigation into the circumstances surrounding this unforgivable release of classified discovery material" and report their findings by the end of Monday.
Dominion denied that the materials came from the company or any of its lawyers. "No one associated with Dominion shared these confidential materials with the press," the company said.
In a separate letter to Dominion's lawyers at Susman Godfrey LLP and Clare Locke LLP, Fox said the revelations "violate the text and spirit" of the agreement, which "requires the return or destruction" of all confidential discovery materials.
Fox is trying to contain the public relations fallout from the leaks. The network on Friday sent a letter to the left-leaning watchdog group Media Matters demanding that it stop publishing leaked images of Carlson on set.
The president of Media Matters, Angelo Carusone, said in a statement that "reporting on noteworthy leaked material is the cornerstone of journalism" and that it was "absurd" for Fox to argue otherwise.
Dominion alleged in its lawsuit that Fox knowingly spread false claims that its vote-counting machines were used to rig the 2020 U.S. election against former Republican President Donald Trump and in favor of Joe Biden, a Democrat.
Fox denied the allegations, but settled the case in Delaware Superior Court. The settlement came shortly before opening statements were due to begin, in what promised to be the most closely watched media trial in decades, featuring testimony from Fox Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch.
Carlson, Fox's biggest star, was abruptly fired a few days later. Media outlets, including the New York Times, reported that the decision came after Fox's board saw Carlson's internal messages.
The Times reported on Tuesday that Fox was particularly concerned about a message from Carlson — which was redacted in public versions of court documents — in which he criticized Trump supporters for beating up a leftist protester because "that's not how white men fight."