Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson among Fox News stars ordered to give depositions in Dominion defamation suit

Network allegedly played a key role in disseminating false and bizarre conspiracy theories about voting systems company’s role in 2020 election

Several of Fox News’s top hosts, including Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, have been called to give depositions in a major defamation suit brought against the network by Dominion Voting Systems.

The case revolves around the network’s propagation of false claims and conspiracy theories regarding the 2020 election, and specifically the assertion that Dominion’s voting machines were deliberately compromised in any of various implausible ways in order to rig the election for Joe Biden.

As reported by The New York Times, the names ordered to testify in the case include Mr Carlson and Mr Hannity, as well as Judge Jeanine Pirro, Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy, and various producers.

Dominion is suing the network for $1.6bn, claiming that it “decided to promote former President Trump’s narrative after Trump’s condemnation of Fox damaged its stock and viewership”.

A former political editor at the network, Chris Stirewalt, this week described how the decision to call Arizona for Joe Biden on election night – a move that put the network ahead of any other major rival – so enraged Mr Trump and his allies that his position there became untenable.

After the call, which came as Mr Trump was just embarking on his efforts to push the false claim that the election was stolen, the then-president began complaining that Fox News was proving insufficiently loyal and suggested his supporters turn their TVs to lesser-watched, more zealously pro-Trump networks including OAN and Newsmax.

Dominion is suing various figures in the Trump orbit for their claims after the election, which included that Dominion and fellow voting technology company Smartmatic were using technology developed nefariously under the regime of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez (who died in 2013).

Among those named in other lawsuits are Sidney Powell, who pushed the Venezuela story in her blizzard of failed “Kraken” lawsuits filed in courts across the US, and Rudy Giuliani, whom the company says engaged in “a viral disinformation campaign” against it.

Fox News has been hit with numerous disinformation-related lawsuits in recent years. Among the highest-profile was an action brought by the parents of Seth Rich, a DNC staffer who was murdered in Washington, DC in 2016 and whose death became part of a false conspiracy theory involving the Clintons – a theory that Fox News featured on some of its highest-rated shows.

The network ultimately settled the case out of court.

In a statement, Fox News said: “We are confident we will prevail as freedom of the press is foundational to our democracy and must be protected, in addition to the damages claims being outrageous, unsupported and not rooted in sound financial analysis, serving as nothing more than a flagrant attempt to deter our journalists from doing their jobs.”