Blackout: Fox News is ignoring a newly revealed memo that shows the Trump campaign knew its election claims were false
Written by John Whitehouse
Research contributions from Rob Savillo & Media Matters Staff
Published
In the early afternoon of September 21, The New York Times reported on a Trump campaign memo from November 14, 2020, that debunked allegations concerning election services providers Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic that would continue to be pushed by then-Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell.
Nearly 24 hours later, Fox News has still not mentioned the report or the memo on air – even though the memo debunked specific claims that had been made on Fox News previously.
The Times report explained:
Even though the memo was hastily assembled, it rebutted a series of allegations that Ms. Powell and others were making in public. It found:
- That Dominion did not use voting technology from the software company, Smartmatic, in the 2020 election.
- That Dominion had no direct ties to Venezuela or to Mr. Soros.
- And that there was no evidence that Dominion’s leadership had connections to left-wing “antifa” activists, as Ms. Powell and others had claimed.
As [former Dominion employee Eric] Coomer’s lawyers wrote in their motion in the defamation suit, “The memo produced by the Trump campaign shows that, at least internally, the Trump campaign found there was no evidence to support the conspiracy theories regarding Dominion” and Mr. Coomer.
You can read the whole memo here.
It is not hard to imagine why Fox News would be uncomfortable discussing this campaign memo. As Media Matters has meticulously documented, Fox News itself aired all of these Dominion conspiracy theories (and more) – many times well after the date of the memo; the network is currently being sued by both Dominion and Smartmatic.
If even the Trump campaign was able to do basic research showing that these claims were false, then clearly Fox News could have as well.
Instead, Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer on November 16 called the conspiracy theories “convincing.” And other Fox News figures followed suit.
Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time the network knowingly aired false claims for partisan purposes.
This has been updated.