The bombshell filings recently released in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News tell two stories. The first, which is front and center in the documents and in the newspaper headlines reporting on their contents, is that Fox’s top executives and stars knew that the claims that were being made on the network about the company’s purported role in stealing the 2020 election were false, but they continued to push them because they feared that angry viewers would abandon it for its competitors. Experts say that the voluminous evidence the filings reveal from internal documents and depositions leaves Fox and its parent company in grave legal jeopardy. 

But the second story, buried within the filings, may prove even more devastating to Fox. Dominion, in documenting Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch’s direct oversight of the network, revealed numerous cases in which the Fox News co-founder brazenly used its resources to aid the Republican Party. These include a report that Murdoch shared ads then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign planned to run on the network with then-President Donald Trump’s White House, as well as his repeated and explicit instructions to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott to use the network to help GOP Senate candidates win their elections.