As part of Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News for promoting false conspiracy theories about its machines, Dominion filed a 200-page document containing text messages, internal emails, and depositions from Fox News employees. The private communications reveal that Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham, and others at Fox doubted the truthfulness of Trump sycophants like Sidney Powell, Mike Lindell, and Rudy Giuliani yet continued to have them on their programs.
From Rolling Stone:
On Nov. 13, per the document, Carlson texted [his producer, Alex] Pfeiffer that Trump needed to concede "that there wasn't enough fraud to change the outcome" of the election, and later texted that Powell, one of Trump's lawyers, was "lying" about having evidence for election fraud. In another text exchange a few days later, as stated in the legal filing, Carlson repeated his concerns to Ingraham, writing that "Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It's insane." Ingraham replied, "Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy." Carlson responded, "It's unbelievably offensive to me. Our viewers are good people and they believe it."
"Those fuckers are destroying our credibility. It enrages me," Carlson said in a message to his producer. He also expressed his fear of Trump. "He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong," he told Pfeiffer.
On January 6, 2021, the day Trump attempted to overthrow the government and install himself as an unelected ruler, Carlson messaged Pfeiffer, and called Trump "a demonic force, a destroyer," adding, "But he's not going to destroy us."
"Despite this, just three weeks later," says Rolling Stone, Carlson "invited his leading sponsor Mike Lindell on his show; Lindell proceeded to repeat Powell's conspiracies on air, even previewing them for Carlson's staff."
