Fox hosts Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro, each named as individual defendants in Smartmatic’s $2.7+ billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, have filed individual motions to dismiss that essentially claim, "We were just doing our jobs."
Each of the three hosts have the same attorneys and, as Law & Crime summed up, the motions “largely assert” the hosts “were just doing their jobs in their handling of [co-defendants] Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani’s never-proven election fraud allegations.”
For Example, Law & Crime, which published all three motions to dismiss, excerpted this laughable allegation from Bartiromo’s motion:
When the President of the United States and his legal team leveled allegations that the 2020 Presidential election was tainted by fraud, veteran news anchor Maria Bartiromo did her job: She covered that unquestionably newsworthy story.
…
As with Giuliani, Bartiromo’s immediate response was to repeatedly question whether Powell could actually prove her allegations: “So Sidney, you feel that you will be able to prove this? Do you have the software in your possession? Do you have the hardware in your possession? How will you prove this Sidney?” (Id.) Bartiromo stressed that “you have a very … small time frame here. The elections are supposed to be certified in early December.”
It's true Bartiromo asked Powell those questions during their shameful interview on November 15, 2020. But Bartiromo was clearly siding with and promoting Powell's disinformation, not challenging it. For example, after noting the elections were supposed to be certified in December, Bartiromo continued, “Do you believe that you can present this to the courts and be successful within this just couple of weeks?”
My post about this interview noted what happened next:
Powell said, “I never say anything I can’t prove” and then claimed evidence of “massive election fraud” is “coming in so fast I can’t even process it all.”
Bartiromo didn’t question why Trump’s lawyers have not presented such overwhelming evidence to any courts.
There was also was this:
After another long jag of allegations of what could be done to rig the [voting] machines, Bartiromo once again validated Powell. “Sidney, you say you have an affidavit from someone who knows how this system works and was there with the planning of it. You believe you can prove this in court,” Bartiromo said obligingly.
“Oh, yes, we have a sworn, essentially a sworn statement from a witness who knew exactly how it worked.”
Bartiromo has to know that “essentially a sworn statement” is not the same as an actual sworn statement. But again, instead of asking questions, she legitimized Powell. “Wow, this is explosive,” Bartiromo gushed, “and we certainly will continue to follow it. Sidney, thank you so much for your work.”
This is one of the key ways that Fox cloaks its propaganda as news: Hosts allow the “in” guests to make allegations without any serious challenge, throw in comments that serve as clear signals of alliance to their viewers, offer a few perfunctory remarks about the “other side,” thus effectively outsourcing the “truth” to the guest, then disingenuously call the whole thing spirited opinion.
It’s BS and I hope a judge and jury see through it.
You can see what Bartiromo’s lawyer claims was “covering” a newsworthy story (that happened to be 100% false) below, from the November 15, 2020 Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo:
Not.