In the weeks leading up to the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol Building, opinion hosts at Fox News were more than happy to promote then-President Donald Trump’s bogus and debunked claims of widespread voter fraud. Never Trump conservative Max Boot, in a February 9 column for the Washington Post, slams the right-wing cable news outlet for pushing lies and disinformation in the weeks after the 2020 election — and for continuing to do it.
“Donald Trump is now on trial in the Senate for inciting a violent insurrection, but what about his collaborators?,” Boot writes. “Fox ‘News,’ Newsmax, One American News, and other right-wing outlets relentlessly pushed the ‘Big Lie’ that led to this attack. On January 4, for example, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson accused ‘virtually every power center on Earth’ of working ‘tirelessly.… to bypass voters and get Joe Biden to the White House’…. Where is the accountability for right-wing propagandists like Carlson, who recklessly splashed around the lighter fluid that ignited on January 6?
Fox News is presently facing a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit from voting technology provider Smartmatic for promoting the debunked conspiracy theory that its technology was used to help Biden steal the election. The lawsuit specifically mentions Fox News hosts Jeanine Pirro and Maria Bartiromo as well as Lou Dobbs, whose show on Fox Business was abruptly canceled last week. Continue reading.