they didn t want their executives or their host admitting, in sworn testimony, what they did. that they knowingly an repeatedly pushed one of the most dangerous falsehoods in american history stephen shackelford served a co-counsel for dominion voting systems. mr. shackelford, thanks fo joining us i understand you have on client and one client only and a responsibility to that client i would like you to respond to people who feel that and the public, in a larger way, it wa robbed of an opportunity t learn more and to have som public accountability by not having this trial go forward and the settlement being struc today. i get the disappointment, chris. i definitely get it. we were disappointed not to go through with the trial as well i think the first what you mad is the important one our clients as dominion. people, i think, are forgettin what dominion went through we were here in court becaus
company in the context of th coverage of the 2020 election. in the wake of the news of the settlement with dominion, lawyer for smartmati immediately released statement saying in part, quote, the minions litigation exposed the misconduct and damaged cars by fox s information campaign smartmatic will expose the rest. fox will not only have to deal with another likely damaging set of facts, it may also have just advertised what their price is how much they are willing to pay to make them go away we don t know yet. we may never know anything but the details of today s settlement beyond that dolla amount it is very likely that fox s statement this afternoon is as close as they will ever get to issuing some form of an apolog or acknowledgment of their wrongdoing writing in part, quote, we acknowledge the courts rulings finding certain claims about dominion to be false fox also laughably asserte that the settlement, quote ready for this, reflects foxes
it is just a fact. the judge did a lot of work of dominion before that sayin that these statements were false and defamatory the last question is for the jury to say, should they hav been held culpable for that? secondly, fox having acknowledged that fact as serious as that acknowledgment was, you had fox settling fo this enormous figure certainly, rupert murdoch ca afford this, their company can afford it because of the riche that fox news generates ever financial quarter. nonetheless, it s a huge amoun of money that any fortune 50 - would have to acknowledge as significant. it s also that that figure was acknowledged publicly. they can speak to the statemen and size of the settlement which clearly had to b acknowledged publicly as par of this settlement, and sa that this was vindicated we are right, something wron happens. fox had to pay the high nine figures, it doesn t do that fo charity. it s doing that for necessity,
he looked down on his phone, said oh gosh, i have to go at that point, i said there s settlement, it s about t happen so you had a spidey sense and also good intel from insid of the courtroom, david, but d you have a sense of how th admission of guilt here is the price tag of the settlement as a media reporter can yo summarize the impact that will have inside of fox, and then newsgathering culture? let s not say the news got during culture, but let s sa fox s culture at the network whether or not this changes th way the business is done i think that the way to think about this is that there is a three part concession her by fox none of which would be fully satisfying to people that felt like the wrong was profound an needed to be marked for no just a moment of history you have foxes acknowledgmen that the court had ruled false statements were made
million dollars to settle th case, to stop the case the settlement discussions began when the judge recess fo lunch today, telling everyon to be back in the courtroom at 1:30 pm. when 1:30 pm arrived, no one came back to the courtroom because the lawyers had passed the word to the judge that the were working on a settlement and that can happen at any point in a civil trial, so the judge certainly wasn t surprised by that. and it is standard to simply suspend while lawyers ar working on a settlement. the settlement rupert murdoc pain for today could have been purchased at that price before dominion ever put rupert murdoch under oath in th deposition highly incriminated himself as a functioning coconspirator in the defamation - [interpreter if rupert murdoch had been smart about this case and if h