Fox News hires high-profile defense team in Dominion defamation lawsuit

Fox News has hired two high-profile defense attorneys to combat a $1.6 billion lawsuit filed against it by voting technology company Dominion.

The media outlet disclosed in a court filing that it had hired Charles Babcock and Scott Keller for its defense. Fox News confirmed the hirings to The Hill.

Babcock currently works at the Texas law firm Jackson Walker. He “has tried over 100 cases to a jury and argued over 50 appeals” and has “represented individuals such as Warren Buffet, Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Phil McGraw, George W. Bush, and Reggie Love,” according to his online biography.

His corporate clients have included Orix USA, Celanese Corp., Fox News Network, CNN, Google, CBS Television Studios, Vantage Drilling International, Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema, 3M Corp. and the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Keller, of the Texas law firm Lehotsky Keller LLP, has argued several cases in front of the Supreme Court and served as Texas’s solicitor general.

Babcock and Keller are joining Valerie Caras, Blake Rohrbacher and Katharine Mowery, who are all currently listed in court filings as Fox News’s defense attorneys.

The hirings come after Dominion Voting Systems filed the lawsuit in March that accuses Fox News of peddling “baseless conspiracy theories” that the election was stolen from former President Trump in an effort to boost its ratings.

Rival voting technology company Smartmatic also filed a $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox News and others in February over claims they made about the company’s technology. The media outlet has filed motions to dismiss that suit.

Several guests and hosts on Fox News leveled evidence-challenged claims that election fraud marred the presidential election and pointed to tech from Dominion and Smartmatic as a part of efforts to push President Biden to victory.

Fox News Media told The Hill after Dominion filed its suit that it is “proud of our 2020 election coverage, which stands in the highest tradition of American journalism, and will vigorously defend against this baseless lawsuit in court.”