Fox Wins Another Defamation Lawsuit Over Tucker Carlson’s January 6 Report

Fox News He won his second defamation verdict Wednesday, just days after a federal judge in Delaware dismissed a former Trump supporter’s former landlord’s claim. tucker carlson While he said he was a government provocateur during the January 6 insurrection, he acted with “genuine malice.”

Suit brought by Ray Epps in July 2023 after Carlson made it target One of the conspiracy theories. But months later, Epps was indicted, effectively dispelling this unfounded notion. Epps would continue admit guilt subjected to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct on limited grounds and was given probation.

Despite what Carlson said about Epps, defamation lawsuits are hard to win. Judge Jennifer Hall acknowledged that although Carlson had “engaged in poor journalism,” it did not meet the standard of acting in bad faith. New York Times.

As further evidence of Epps’ tough fight, Fox’s lawyers once successfully defended He found Carlson in a libel lawsuit, arguing that viewers should not take him literally.

The right-wing network acknowledged Wednesday’s development and also cited other recent legal gains.

“Following the dismissals of the Jankowicz, Bobulinski, and now Epps cases, FOX News is pleased with these back-to-back decisions by federal courts protecting First Amendment press freedoms,” a spokesperson told The Daily Beast.

On Tuesday, a New York judge dismissed A defamation lawsuit filed against host Jessica Tarlov by one of the House Republicans’ witnesses in the ill-fated Biden effort to impeach.

And another during the summer defamation case He was dismissed. This claim was made by Nina Jankowicz, the former head of the Biden administration’s short-lived Disinformation Governance Board within the Department of Homeland Security. Jankowicz claimed that the network “repeatedly lied about me to its tens of millions of viewers,” leading to violent threats and harassment.

Fox, which filed a defamation lawsuit The company, which was acquired by Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million last April, still faces a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit filed by voting technology company Smartmatic.