Lawyers for Fox News are asking officials at Dominion Voting Systems to conduct an internal investigation after media reports have surfaced pertaining to leaked text messages from Tucker Carlson, a former top host at the network.
In a letter dated Friday, Fox lawyers said the company had learned documents Fox produced as part of its recent litigation against the voting systems provider “were disclosed to media organizations and published for mass consumption.”
The letter urges officials at Dominion to “investigate and confirm that you are not the source of these improper disclosures.”
Leakage of court documents and redacted exhibits, the network’s lawyers said, would violate “the text and spirit of the parties agreement.”
Late last month, the news company agreed to pay Dominion $787 million to settle defamation claims in connection with false claims the network aired about the company’s software around the time of the 2020 election, a narrative being promoted by former president Trump and his allies.
Days after the two parties settled out of court, Fox ousted Carlson, its top prime-time host.
The contents of Carlson’s text messages to fellow employees disparaging Trump and his false claims of voter fraud had previously been made public as part of Dominion’s process of legal discovery and produced a number of embarrassing headlines for the network ahead of an expected jury trial.
But since his departure, previously-redacted portions of Carlson’s text messages have come to light.
This week, the New York Times reported Carlson texted a producer on his show after watching a video of a three-on-one attack that broke out at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, claiming the beatdown wasn’t “how white men fight.”
Another report published in the Daily Beast this week, citing redacted court documents, alleged Carlson used the c-word to disparage female executives at the network.
Earlier Friday, attorneys for Fox sent a cease-and-desist letter to Media Matters for America, a liberal media watchdog, over its publication of leaked, off-air footage of Carlson making sexist and crude comments.
When reached out to for comment, a Dominion spokesperson told The Hill in a statement that “nobody associated with Dominion shared these confidential materials with the press.”