Fox News host Sean Hannity admitted under oath that he “did not believe” for “one second” there was mass voter fraud in the 2020 election.
Hannity’s testimony was included in court depositions released on Wednesday in the Delaware Superior Court, according to The New York Times. The depositions were part of a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News brought by Dominion Voting Systems.
Hannity was responding to a question in the deposition on whether he believed the false claims made by former President Trump’s attorney Sidney Powell in November 2020.
Powell told Hannity then that there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election and that voting machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems helped steal the election by switching votes.
“I did not believe it for one second,” Hannity said in the released deposition, according to the Times.
Dominion is suing Fox News for defamation, alleging the company spread false claims about its voting machines in the aftermath of the 2020 election, leading to financial loss.
Trump’s legal team and the former president’s allies did appear on Fox News and other conservative networks raising false claims about the voting machines, but Dominion would have to prove that Fox journalists knew the claims they made were false or that journalists acted with a reckless disregard for the truth.
Stephen Shackelford, an attorney for Dominion, made the case at the hearing that the company has strong evidence that Fox News journalists knew claims about mass voter fraud in the 2020 election were false but chose to amplify them anyway, the Times reported.
“Many of the highest-ranking Fox people have admitted under oath that they never believed the Dominion lies,” he said, according to the Times.
Those include Fox News hosts Meade Cooper and prime-time star Tucker Carlson, Shackelford said.
The case is slated to go to a jury trial in April. The depositions released on Wednesday were part of a hearing to address some issues involved.
Fox News is also facing another defamation suit filed by Smartmatic, another manufacturer of voting machines targeted by Trump allies after the 2020 election.