The Megyn Kelly Show - Murdaugh Convicted, and the Dominion-Fox News Lawsuit, with Andrew Branca, Jeremy Peters, Peter Tragos, Ronnie Richter, and More

00:00:00.440 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.880 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday.

00:00:17.000 The Murdoch double murder trial came to an end yesterday with a guilty verdict by the jury of 12.

00:00:23.300 guilty on all counts, two counts of murder, two counts of related weapons charges, and the verdict

00:00:30.320 came less than three hours after the deliberations began. Alec Murdoch appeared in front of Colleton

00:00:36.420 County Judge Clifton Newman earlier today for his sentencing. At that sentencing hearing,

00:00:43.320 he once again maintained his innocence. Murdoch was sentenced by the judge to life in prison

00:00:49.720 for each of those murder charges for his wife Maggie and his son Paul. Those sentences will

00:00:54.680 run consecutively. The basic gist of it is he's not getting out of jail. This is it.

00:01:00.560 The defense is expected to hold a presser any moment now, and we will keep our eyes and ears

00:01:05.660 open for that and bring you the updates as they come in. You know, I've been thinking about it.

00:01:09.880 Last night, you get the word that the verdict's coming. And of course, you're like, oh my God,

00:01:12.640 the verdict. Verdicts in American legal history are just, they tend to be gripping. Our legal system

00:01:19.340 is by far the best that exists on earth, by far. We've done so much to try to make it fair for the

00:01:25.760 defendants because the process is so weighted in favor of the state. And therefore, it sets up

00:01:31.960 conflict. It sets up drama. It sets up, you know, putting one's fate in the hand of 12 strangers,

00:01:38.840 which in and of itself is somewhat dramatic and, you know, gripping. But I think this case has really

00:01:44.820 captured the attention of the nation in a special way. So why is that? I've been asking myself that.

00:01:49.660 Why has this case so gripped the nation? This one in particular, because we've seen murder cases

00:01:53.160 before, even of a husband killing a family member. But I believe this one is different. It's really

00:01:59.500 captured people's attention because it has forced us to ask the dark questions we try to avoid

00:02:05.480 about human nature and even about ourselves. I mean, we all know there's murder, there's bad guys,

00:02:12.460 there's horrific acts that go on out there. We try to tell ourselves that's somebody else.

00:02:17.240 That's why we can listen to Dateline, right? You say, that's not my life. That wouldn't happen to me.

00:02:22.080 I would know. I would see it. I don't associate with people like that. But this case involves a

00:02:27.400 respected trial attorney, right? This is not some boogeyman from like the dark dregs of society.

00:02:33.540 This is a respected trial attorney from a revered family, a family man, we were told. An affable guy

00:02:41.120 most people really liked. What turns a person like that from man into monster? And how do we grapple

00:02:50.520 with it when the monster was hiding in plain sight and no one knew? You heard witness after witness in

00:02:56.840 this case testify about how I had no idea that he was a thief, that he was a serial liar, nevermind the

00:03:03.100 murder charges. The testimony was, this is a nice family. They celebrated birthdays together. They

00:03:08.580 seemed to love one another. Until the day Alec Murdoch blew his son's head off and gunned his wife

00:03:15.720 down five times just after she presumably watched her own son die. Listen to the videotape that Paul took

00:03:23.920 minutes. I mean, we believe it was four to six minutes before he was murdered. I'll play it for you

00:03:30.620 in a second in a second. All right. But that videotape is so telling. And it was the crux

00:03:36.040 of the guilty verdict. We now know because a juror spoke out. No one sounds out of sorts.

00:03:41.800 And the voice of the murderer, Alec Murdoch, who was about to kill his family, sounds totally

00:03:47.600 nonplussed. How can any of this be? Murderers are supposed to look like boogeymen and sound like

00:03:53.820 boogeymen. You're supposed to be able to hear the anger in their voice and anticipate that something

00:03:57.040 terrible is about to happen. None of that happened here. The truth is that murderers are not always

00:04:02.160 Charles Manson lookalikes. They're not always even strangers. Murder can and often is committed by one

00:04:08.660 family member against another. And while the vast majority of us cannot fathom it, it happens.

00:04:15.320 And understanding why can be nearly impossible, but is understandably compelling. It is, I believe,

00:04:23.580 why we tune in night after night and why we get the feeling as the verdict gets announced

00:04:29.100 and why we find ourselves drawn into these cases, even though we think they have nothing to do with

00:04:34.960 us. Joining me now to discuss everything about this case, where it goes from here, what's likely

00:04:40.280 to happen next, and how the prosecution got their man is a stellar Kelly's Court panel. Andrew

00:04:47.220 Branca, attorney and self-defense expert, is here. Ronnie Richter, founder and partner at Bland

00:04:51.780 Richter, and Peter Tragos, lawyer and host of The Lawyer You Know on YouTube. Great to have you all.

00:04:58.200 Thanks so much for being here. Sure. So, I mean, what do you guys make of that? Let me start with

00:05:03.960 you, Ronnie, as the guy's got a kind of role in this case and having sued Alec Murdoch on behalf of

00:05:08.720 two of his financial victims. What do you make of my assessment of why this is so captured the nation?

00:05:15.880 Yeah, I think you're right on. And I think also that the, when you think about the power and the

00:05:19.900 privilege that a guy like Alex Murdoch had when he was gifted so much in life, all that was ever

00:05:25.120 really asked of him was just keep the plane on the runway. And to think about how far he's fallen,

00:05:32.640 you know, isn't that what is most appealing about a priest pedophile case? It's not that

00:05:36.940 priests corner the market on pedophilia, but when you're on such a high pedestal, the fall is so far,

00:05:43.720 and you've got a guy like Alex Murdoch who was gifted everything in life to see him,

00:05:47.460 you know, go to ruins, I think is a compelling human story.

00:05:52.120 Yeah. And the thing about, you know, a monster like this man who was living a great big life,

00:06:01.000 right? Like well-respected, well-liked. Even the sister of Maggie Murdoch testified their marriage

00:06:06.680 wasn't perfect, but she was happy. You know, the pictures of them at the, at the birthday parties,

00:06:11.060 having a nice time. We like to look at somebody like that and say, no, no, no. Couldn't be,

00:06:15.960 could not be, that looks too familiar. And yet one of the reasons why the verdict is so compelling

00:06:20.800 is it's the jury telling us, and we, we, we impure impute them with some sort of superior

00:06:26.740 discernment abilities, right? It's like not real until the jury says it's real. And when the jury

00:06:31.880 says he did it, we walk away saying he did it. He was the monster. And what does that mean for me,

00:06:37.940 Ronnie?

00:06:38.100 Yeah. I think all those elements were there. And then overlaid on top of that, you've got

00:06:43.800 the Grisham novel that it's in the low country of South Carolina. It's a, uh, the midnight in the

00:06:50.240 garden of good and evil feel to the whole thing. So there were so many elements about the case beyond

00:06:55.920 the simple legal issues that I think were just compelling human stories. And, and you could see

00:07:01.220 it and, and people traveling to Walterboro, South Carolina from all over the country. Uh, we, we,

00:07:06.600 they were there every day just to, just to be a part of it. It was, it was a bizarre circus-like

00:07:12.820 atmosphere throughout that trial. Nothing like we've ever seen here before. I can tell you that.

00:07:17.720 So this poor judge Newman, who I think is pretty well respected, um, by most of the pundits who've been

00:07:22.660 watching this trial and certainly those who practice in front of him, he lost his own son who was age 40

00:07:27.340 to a heart incident earlier this month. It was, or last January, January, it's no longer February

00:07:33.460 in any event. Um, and you got to wonder what it was like for this poor guy to be presiding over trial

00:07:39.320 in which a man was accused of killing his own adult son when this had just happened to him.

00:07:43.680 And I don't know about you guys, but I thought it was extraordinary. The exchange the judge had with

00:07:47.240 Alec Murdoch at the, at today moments ago where he, he was asking him questions and Alec was responding

00:07:53.920 and the judge was really offering his own opinion about how the evidence went and how the, how he

00:07:58.660 was, he was kind of, it was sad for him personally. He had practiced, Alec Murdoch had practiced law in

00:08:03.180 front of him. We cut a little bit of it just so the audience can get a feel. Um, take a listen.

00:08:07.840 This has been perhaps one of the most troubling cases, not just for me as a judge,

00:08:17.020 uh, for the state. You have a wife who's been killed, murdered, a son savage, savage, just savagely

00:08:29.500 murdered, a lawyer, a person from a respected family who has controlled justice in this community

00:08:40.340 for over a century. It's also particularly troubling, uh, Mr. Murdoch because, uh, as a member of the legal

00:08:51.620 community and a well-known member of the legal community, uh, you've practiced law before me. It was

00:09:00.260 especially heartbreaking for me to see you, um, go on, go in the media from being a, uh, a grieving father

00:09:13.060 who lost a wife and a son to being the person indicted and convicted of killing them with tangled web

00:09:25.540 we weave. What did you mean by that? It meant when I lied, I continued to lie.

00:09:36.740 And the question is, when will it end? When will it end?

00:09:42.660 And it, it's ended already for the jury because they've concluded that you continue to lie and lie

00:09:50.660 throughout your testimony. You have to see Paul and Maggie during the night times when you're attempting

00:10:00.100 to go to sleep. I'm sure they come and visit you. I'm sure.

00:10:05.620 All day and every night. Yeah, I'm sure. And they will continue to do so. And, and reflect on the last

00:10:20.100 time they looked you in the eyes. Again, I respect this court, but I'm innocent. I would never,

00:10:30.340 under any circumstances, hurt my wife, Maggie. And I would never, under any circumstances,

00:10:35.940 hurt my son, Paul Paul. Well, and it might not have been you. It might have been, uh,

00:10:45.940 the monster you become when you, uh, take 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 opioid pills. Maybe you become another

00:10:56.660 person, man. What do you make of the events of the past 16 hours? I think it's really interesting

00:11:03.300 that the judge was as gracious as he was in that exchange. I expected him to throw a little more

00:11:09.860 shade at Alec Murdoch with how he was even speaking to the jury after their verdict. And with all of the

00:11:15.640 evidence he allowed in and kind of how he was throughout the trial, he was not happy with Alec

00:11:19.700 Murdoch. And I think as a, as a member of the legal community, Alec Murdoch is a dark stain on what

00:11:25.620 lawyers are supposed to be like and how lawyers are supposed to act. And I really think that what

00:11:29.860 was so intriguing about this case was not only that it was a murder case, but the financial crimes,

00:11:34.580 the creation of fake LLCs, stealing money from clients who have catastrophic injuries,

00:11:40.100 um, and then faking a suicide incident for insurance money. This was literally something

00:11:45.780 that is even made for TV. Doesn't give it justice because it would be so unbelievable,

00:11:50.660 even in some kind of show or movie made in Hollywood. And I think that Alec Murdoch has

00:11:55.380 no choice but to continue maintaining his innocence, which is going to bring us into

00:11:59.620 the appellate phase of this case. Mm hmm. Right. He, the judge said in all my history,

00:12:04.580 I've never had a defendant just own it. Even the ones who have pleaded guilty to committing murder,

00:12:09.380 they won't talk about the moment they pulled the trigger. It's like a disassociation or just a refusal

00:12:15.780 to go there. And Alec Murdoch was no different, no different. He did not plead guilty. He was found

00:12:20.180 guilty and he maintained his innocence as he's still doing. Um, the, the, what, what got him

00:12:26.020 convicted from the sound of it, uh, Andrew is that tape that Paul Murdoch took moments before he died,

00:12:35.140 that they didn't even know about for months and months and months. And, uh, after the murders,

00:12:40.980 the cops didn't know they had their eye on Alec, but they did not know that he was there. He had

00:12:45.300 said, I was at the house, I was sleeping, Maggie and Paul were at the kennels and I didn't hear any

00:12:50.740 of this. And I went to see my mom. Um, then it turns out Paul had taken out a videotape to videotape

00:12:56.260 a dog on site who had mange on his tail. And his friend was worried about the dog and unbeknownst to

00:13:02.740 Alec and most of the people in this case, um, it was all on tape four minutes, four minutes at the

00:13:10.260 most six, we think before Alec murdered them. Here's a little bit of that tape, just to remind

00:13:15.860 folks of how people sounded.

00:13:17.940 Get back, get back, get back, get back.

00:13:31.940 Quick cash.

00:13:43.140 Hey, he's got a bird in his mouth.

00:13:47.140 That was it, Andrew. That's the reason Alec felt he had to take the stand and explain his lie that he

00:14:16.740 wasn't there when everyone could hear his voice on the tape. Everyone testified that was him.

00:14:21.220 And, um, that testimony he gave was not helpful. The juror who spoke out today,

00:14:25.780 and we'll play some of him in a second, didn't believe one word. What are your thoughts?

00:14:31.460 Well, probably, uh, unpopular opinion, but we mentioned the appellate process beginning now.

00:14:36.900 I certainly expect that'll be the case, uh, but we have appellate courts for a reason.

00:14:40.660 And that's because sometimes juries get it wrong.

00:14:42.500 We have the innocence project because sometimes juries get it wrong. Uh, and I have no idea

00:14:48.340 whether or not Alec Murda murdered his wife and son. I wasn't there. Of course, I can only look at

00:14:52.980 what proceeded in court. And what I saw in court was nothing close, uh, to proof beyond a reasonable

00:14:58.980 doubt. I saw an entirely circumstantial case absent any motive other than a completely circumstantial

00:15:04.740 motive. And I don't think any American should be convicted on that kind of case.

00:15:08.260 Well, I mean, why isn't circumstantial evidence enough? That can be, that can create.

00:15:12.500 No, it can be sure. If you have a compelling motive, circumstantial evidence can certainly be

00:15:17.780 enough, but the motive here is entirely itself circumstantial. There's no direct evidence that

00:15:23.860 Alec believed he was going to get any benefit from the financial crimes, uh, or discovery of his

00:15:29.380 financial wrongs for, by murdering his son and his wife, the son and wife that every state witness

00:15:35.220 in the position, no said he adored and loved. Okay. Let me get Ronnie to respond to that as

00:15:40.740 somebody who sued Alec on behalf of those two kids who, who were, by the way, I'm not saying

00:15:45.140 Alec's a nice guy. I, if he goes to jail for the rest of his life with the financial stuff,

00:15:48.980 I don't have any problem with that. I have no personal investment in Alec Murda. I'm speaking

00:15:52.900 only to the criminal charges here, which were murder. Go ahead, go ahead, Ronnie. Do you want to

00:15:56.740 respond? Yeah. I think any outcome here would have been a perfectly acceptable outcome. I think if the

00:16:02.420 jury had said, uh, not guilty, I think that would have been acceptable based on the evidence presented.

00:16:07.060 I think if the jury would have hung, that would, would have been understandable. I think the

00:16:11.780 pivotal moment in the case was Alex's decision to testify. And he made it a single issue case. He

00:16:17.940 turned a very complicated case into a single issue. And the single issue is why did you lie to the

00:16:23.700 police about having not been there? And I don't think the jury believed his answer. I think that's

00:16:29.060 why the deliberation was so short. At the end of the day, it wasn't just this time to go home.

00:16:33.860 I think the first question was, does anybody accepted his answer as to why he was not there?

00:16:38.820 And if he lied about not having been there, then he lied about that for a reason. You know,

00:16:44.660 the other thing that I think is compelling in the case, and a place where I think the defense

00:16:48.500 strategy may have boomeranged a little bit, that site visit, I think was ill-advised. I've been out

00:16:54.100 there. It's remote. And they wanted the jury to see the spatial relationships with the kennels in

00:17:00.260 the house. Well, the spatial relationship that strikes you when you go out there is it's in

00:17:05.700 the middle of nowhere. And so I could see the jury on that site visit asking themselves,

00:17:11.540 well, how is it possible that it was anyone else other than Alex? So he's there at the time. We're

00:17:17.700 very close in proximity to the time the murders are committed. They appear to have been committed with

00:17:22.420 weapons of the household. And he lies about his whereabouts and his behavior from that moment

00:17:28.100 forward appears to be the behavior of a guilty person. So I'm comfortable that the circumstantial

00:17:33.860 evidence was there. I would have been comfortable with any outcome from this evidence, frankly.

00:17:38.180 Mm hmm. The juror who spoke who spoke out on ABC News today, his name was Craig Moyer,

00:17:46.180 definitely cited that video. I mean, the big lie in this case, which was Alex saying,

00:17:50.980 I was not down at the kennels.

00:17:52.660 Anywhere near the time of the murder, maybe an hour before that, but nowhere near after

00:17:56.100 that until I found the dead bodies. And he was forced to he was forced to take the stand

00:18:00.740 and admit that that was a lie because his son had taken this videotape unbeknownst to him.

00:18:05.780 I had said a couple of days ago to your partner, Ronnie, Eric Bland, who was on here,

00:18:11.060 that if this jury finds Alec Murdoch guilty, it will be because his son, in essence,

00:18:16.660 fingered him. His son is the one who found his own murderer and told the police about it posthumously.

00:18:22.420 I mean, it's very eerie. And the prosecutor matter said something very similar in his rebuttal,

00:18:27.860 which resonated with the jury as described by Craig Moyer. Here's soundbite eight with the

00:18:34.180 prosecutor in that rebuttal on that moment. The three witnesses that were beautiful,

00:18:41.460 that were uncontroverted.

00:18:42.660 And one was Paul. He didn't testify to you up on the stand, but he testified to Dr. Raymond.

00:18:54.500 And he testified to his son. He didn't know he took that video off. That's why he said he wasn't down there.

00:19:00.740 Paul knew. Dad, I got some insurance. I got some insurance. Not the kind of insurance you've made,

00:19:11.700 money off of, an insurance some clients you gave back and some you didn't. I've got some insurance

00:19:18.820 on you. But if you go lie and say you weren't down here, I got you. I don't know when it'll come out.

00:19:26.260 Maybe you'll go ahead and lie. But this is going to come out. Paul had that insurance on him.

00:19:32.500 And maybe that's why he was worried about that phone. And you can't make that up.

00:19:36.580 Because you remember when I asked David Owens, does anybody else in the world,

00:19:40.580 in the world know that that video was out there except Paul? No, sir. And that's incredible evidence.

00:19:49.540 Absolutely chilling. What did you make of the juror this morning?

00:19:52.020 Oh, if you're asking me, I never. No, that's for Ronnie. And then I'll get you, Andrew. Yes,

00:19:58.340 definitely. Go ahead, Ronnie. Yeah, the juror. The juror this morning.

00:20:03.460 Yeah. Again, it just became a credibility contest. And I disagree with you a little bit,

00:20:09.700 Megan. I don't think that Alex had to take the stand to explain this lie. I don't think they could

00:20:14.900 have kept him off the stand. I think he's that guy who's so comfortable on his home court that he just

00:20:20.580 thought if he took the stand and he talked to his people, he could convince them one more time.

00:20:25.860 And having taken that risk, it's not just the big lie. It's every other lie in between. And there

00:20:32.180 was a small lie at the end that might've been the one that cooked his goose. And that was the lie about

00:20:36.580 the fact that the sheriff had permitted him to put the blue lights in the car. And so in the closing,

00:20:42.100 Meadows was able to turn to the jury and say, look how easily and casually he turned and lied to you

00:20:47.220 about something even as simple as whether he had permission to put the lights in the car. So

00:20:52.420 I think it's hard to get into jail. I think you have to talk your way in. And I think Alex talked

00:20:57.780 his way into jail. Yeah. Creighton Waters, the lead prosecutor, he said this morning on ABC,

00:21:04.500 I knew as soon as the defense put in one exhibit that Alec Murdoch would take the stand. He knew Alec too

00:21:09.940 well. He knew he was not the type to sit there and let this trial go by without having himself weigh in.

00:21:15.220 He really believed in his own powers of persuasion. And it did not turn out to be helpful. I mean,

00:21:20.180 you know, you and I, Peter, have talked about how this the defense wasn't going so badly,

00:21:25.220 you know, as they were poking holes in the way the statement handled the crime scene.

00:21:30.100 Yes, they had to deal with this problem of the videotape, but it was the biggest problem. And if

00:21:34.420 they had found like a clever way of dealing with that, they could have avoided Alec on that stand.

00:21:40.580 Yeah, I think the two biggest things in this case, and I've heard the juror interview,

00:21:45.700 I know they put a lot on that video, which I think was the best and biggest piece of evidence that the

00:21:50.420 state had. But when I look at this case, I think it came down to the other bad acts. When we talk

00:21:55.060 about, again, who he stole from, how he stole, how he literally didn't care about anybody else but

00:22:00.020 himself or his family. And then when you couple that with the fake suicide attempt, and then Alec

00:22:06.260 Murdoch taking the stand, I think that's where he lost the case. Because I think this was a very

00:22:11.220 winnable case by the defense because of how horrible this investigation was, all the things

00:22:15.460 they didn't do, all the things they didn't find, all the things they didn't test. And that should

00:22:20.100 have been the focus as the defense. But then when it started to pile on that Alec Murdoch is a generally

00:22:25.220 bad guy, it's very difficult for jurors to acquit somebody when they start feeling that way about

00:22:29.940 a defendant sitting over there in that chair. But then it's not just conviction. That's not.

00:22:34.260 I think that if they based it off propensity, absolutely. That's the point of the instruction

00:22:38.260 to not base it off propensity. And that's why I think it's going to be the biggest issue.

00:22:42.020 Explain to the audience what you mean by propensity.

00:22:45.260 So 404B is you can hear these other bad acts for other reasons, such as motive, which is what the

00:22:51.060 state got it in under, that he was trying to cover up these financial crimes that we're literally

00:22:54.880 going to convict him for here for three weeks during this murder trial. And then credibility.

00:22:59.620 You know, he lies. If he lied about that, maybe he lied about this, but not. Alec Murdoch is a guy

00:23:05.620 who commits crimes. And because he's committed all these financial crimes, he's more likely to have

00:23:09.620 committed this crime of murder. Now, the issue with that is every case I've been involved in

00:23:14.180 where they've allowed other bad acts, it has ended in a guilty verdict. When you start to pile on other

00:23:19.700 bad acts, it becomes very difficult for a jury who feels like they know that this person has done at

00:23:24.500 least something wrong. Are we really going to acquit him? Are they able to separate these

00:23:29.220 crimes? But when they're told it's just for motive or just for credibility, then sometimes it's hard

00:23:34.020 to differentiate. And that's why the appellate process is not a guaranteed win, regardless of

00:23:38.660 how many lawyers sit here and think about maybe they shouldn't have been allowed in to at least

00:23:41.940 the extent that they were allowed in in a murder trial. Andrew, his lawyers right now are at the

00:23:46.660 microphones saying they will file an appeal within 10 days. You've got to think that the lead

00:23:51.940 basis will be this 404 B argument prior bad acts, which normally are not allowed in except under

00:23:56.820 very limited exceptions. And the prosecution exploited the one on motive mightily to put in

00:24:03.780 all that financial fraud information, which the defense will now argue poisoned the jury against

00:24:09.860 him and deprived him of his right to a fair trial. Yeah, I think there's lots of grounds for appeal in

00:24:14.500 this trial, but I would caution. I always say appeals are for losers. And I mean that in two senses.

00:24:19.060 Of course, you're only appealing if you lost a trial. But also the prospects of getting any

00:24:23.620 meaningful relief on appeal is close to zero. Fewer than one percent of appeals result in a reversal of

00:24:29.540 a conviction. And if you get a reverse of the conviction, I mean, that's a win, I guess, but it just means

00:24:34.420 they're going to try him again. It'll just be another murder trial. So I wouldn't put too much value

00:24:39.940 on appeal. I think the appeal is unavoidable, even if he were completely broke, because he's going to be spending

00:24:44.660 the rest of his life in prison, if only on the financial crimes. And if I were, you know,

00:24:49.860 had legal skills and I had nothing to do with my time in prison except file appeals for myself,

00:24:53.860 I guess that's what I would do. I look forward to it, if only from a technical perspective,

00:24:58.180 I'd like to see what the arguments are going to be. But I never it's not a redo of the trial,

00:25:02.980 right? It's not a second bite of the apple. All the legal presumptions are against him now that

00:25:06.660 he's been found guilty. That's just like you need to look no further than his outfit in court this

00:25:11.620 morning to see what happened. What a difference those 16 hours make, right? He was in his suit

00:25:15.780 for the entire court proceeding because he was only the accused. And as of last night at around six

00:25:21.780 o'clock, he became the convicted murderer, Alec Murdoch. And today he was in his prison garb,

00:25:26.820 handcuffs, sheriff's deputies and so on surrounding him. Ronnie quickly, do you think there's an

00:25:32.260 appealable issue? Do you think there's a credible appealable issue that actually could result in a

00:25:36.900 reversal? A credible appealable issue? Absolutely. That will result in a reversal? Absolutely not.

00:25:43.860 I mean, first the Supreme Court of the state of South Carolina would want to help Alex Murdoch.

00:25:50.740 I can assure you they do not. For what he has put our bar through, our state through,

00:25:55.380 there is no sympathy for Alex Murdoch in the state of South Carolina. And the way this issue came to be,

00:26:01.940 I think there's perfect cover for the court to do nothing for Alex here. Because if you remember,

00:26:06.660 the financial crime evidence was kept out. Judge Newman said it's a bridge too far.

00:26:12.100 And then he pinned the introduction evidence on the defense having opened the door. So,

00:26:18.260 and when he gave that ruling, he even said, look, I said it was a bridge too far. You built a road

00:26:22.420 back over that bridge. And you danced in the flames as if you thought you couldn't be burned by it.

00:26:27.380 I remember that ruling. And that's a judge protecting himself on the record saying,

00:26:31.540 I gave you what you wanted. I told you to be careful, but you went there anyway. And having

00:26:36.660 gone there, I'm letting it all in. So that's every basis in the world for the Supremes to look at it

00:26:41.860 and say, we're not going to give you a lifeline here. Can we talk, Peter, about this, about the jury?

00:26:46.740 I so interested. I love when the jurors speak out, right? It's like, so usually the trial lawyers

00:26:51.460 hate it. Maybe they want to have a private conversation, but they don't want the jurors all over

00:26:54.660 television because God only knows what they're going to say. That's might get you in trouble,

00:26:57.540 might get the upend your verdict that you're happy with if you're on the prosecution team.

00:27:01.220 So Craig Moyer speaks out to Good Morning America and said, yes, it was that videotape. That's what

00:27:08.420 was critical. Said it was nine to three when we first got back there, nine in favor of guilty,

00:27:14.660 two in favor of not guilty. One who wasn't sure said it took us 45 minutes to convince those three

00:27:21.380 to come on board to guilty. And the, what those three were focused on was the shell casings at the

00:27:28.260 scene and whether they should be buying into the defense argument that there had to be two shooters.

00:27:33.140 Um, and they were the, the majority convinced them to abandon that. So here's Craig Moyer speaking out

00:27:38.820 about his impressions of Alec on the stand. It's a soft five. What did you think when Alec Murdoch took the

00:27:45.780 stand? I didn't think much of them. Really? Really. I didn't see any true remorse or

00:27:59.780 any compassion or anything. Even though he was, he cried a lot on the stand. He never cried. He never

00:28:06.660 cried. What do you mean by that? All he did was blow snot. Did you not see tears? No tears. How did you

00:28:13.060 know he wasn't crying? Because I saw his eyes. I was this close to him. So I, I kind of love this

00:28:21.140 guy. I got to say, Peter is like South Carolina guy, working guy. You can't, you can't bullshit

00:28:27.060 him. You know, this guy's like, I see you. I got real problems in my life. I know what a good man

00:28:32.100 looks like. And I know what a bad man looks like. I know when somebody's lying to me, that's what's so

00:28:36.260 deadly for the defense. Like you get jurors, like this guy, plain spoken, like doesn't buy into the

00:28:41.220 razzle dazzle. I'm a much more dangerous juror for either side really than this guy. Cause I'm like,

00:28:48.020 I'm open-minded. I see both sides. That kind of a guy is gold for the prosecution in a case that

00:28:55.060 seems to many of us to be playing as the nose on your face. So I think what, what this confirms

00:28:59.980 about me is, you know, what, what we think about jurors and all different cases, whether it's a

00:29:04.440 criminal case like this, or whether it's some kind of personal injury case and you have an MRI or some

00:29:09.100 study or some report about a truck, the jurors trust their own eyes, ears, and minds over

00:29:16.020 anything else. He looked Alec Murdoch in the face. He looked at his eyes. He made the determination as

00:29:22.020 to whether or not he was crying or remorseful or sincere in anything he said. And that was going

00:29:27.720 to trump any other piece of evidence or expert that they were going to get up there. And apparently

00:29:32.440 these nine jurors only took 45 minutes to convince a couple of holdouts when both sides took six weeks

00:29:38.220 to try to do that job. And it's very interesting when you hear about these deliberations. Listen, as a

00:29:42.860 lawyer not involved in the trial, I love it. I love to listen and to hear with what happened. If you win

00:29:47.500 a trial, you never want a juror to go out and speak because you don't want them to say the wrong

00:29:50.480 thing or that they relied on the Netflix documentary or something like that, God forbid. That makes you

00:29:55.480 nervous when you win a case like this. But when you lose, you usually want to know why and what happened.

00:29:59.260 Ronnie, very interesting report today. OK, you know, the juror who got bounced at the last minute

00:30:08.640 she was there. She went on the visit to Mazzell. So she was there yesterday or two days ago,

00:30:15.020 whatever that was. And she did not join in the deliberations because there was a report and your

00:30:19.960 partner, Eric Bland, had told us he had been hearing that there was a juror who'd been speaking

00:30:25.120 out of turn about the case, speaking to people, not necessarily other jurors, but people in her

00:30:29.720 life about her opinions on the case, which is a just absolutely verboten. You will get kicked off

00:30:34.500 of any jury if they find you doing that. She got kicked off. And here's what's interesting. OK,

00:30:39.040 so there is Fitz News. It's an independent news website in South Carolina. My producer, Kelly,

00:30:46.180 she knows about this website. She's South Carolinian. And they are reporting that this juror

00:30:51.400 who was removed, but might very well have hung the jury. According to a source familiar with

00:30:55.980 the deliberations, that juror was dug in and she said Alec was not guilty and there was nothing

00:31:01.360 anyone could do to change her mind. Quote, she would have hung the jury. The judge removed her

00:31:07.320 and said, I'm not suggesting you intentionally did anything wrong, but you've got to go. And there

00:31:13.260 was a question about, well, there was a report that when they discussed with counsel the fact that

00:31:19.120 these communications had to happen by this particular juror, the prosecution was like,

00:31:24.860 yeah, she's got to go. And the defense was like, well, you know, so it's very clear.

00:31:30.800 They had been told that the substance of her communications were pro-defense.

00:31:35.880 Fascinating issue, right? Like she might very well have hung the jury. And if she hadn't spoken out,

00:31:41.500 Alec Murdoch might have had it had a different result yesterday.

00:31:45.540 Yeah, I think he was that close. And if you remember two days ago, there was an email that

00:31:49.080 counsel at the bench were discussing with the judge. And that was an email that alerted the

00:31:53.680 court to this issue, that there was a juror out there who had violated oath, who had A,

00:31:58.620 formulated opinions before the evidence was complete, and B, had shared those opinions with

00:32:03.300 people outside of the confines of the jury. So that was the matter that was being addressed in

00:32:08.700 that email. And what we came to learn is, you know, this judge, smart judge, that there were in

00:32:13.900 chambers hearings on this. SLED investigated. There were interviews with third parties with whom this

00:32:20.160 person apparently talked. So apparently there's a very rich record that was developed behind the

00:32:25.320 scenes that we don't get to see that makes this not an appellate issue. But it does sound by all

00:32:31.420 accounts that this was the juror that Alec needed. And if she had just kept it tight, then yes, the

00:32:38.880 outcome might have been quite different. It's all speculation. My producers are telling me that

00:32:43.400 defense right now, as they're speaking, are saying, you know, we don't, we're not sure. It

00:32:47.480 might not have been pro-defense. I'm sure they know. I'm sure they've been told what her communications

00:32:53.260 were, but we'll find out. And I mean, it's just, of course, it's all a coulda, shoulda, woulda,

00:32:58.440 if you're on the defense side. Like, what if we had stopped them from testifying? What if somehow

00:33:02.500 we had, you know, managed to find that Paul Murdoch tape before we did? You know, what if

00:33:09.240 that juror hadn't been bounced? They'll torture themselves for years on that as they file their

00:33:15.020 appeal. Okay, much, much more when we come back after this quick break with Andrew, Ronnie, and

00:33:18.720 Peter. Don't go away.

00:33:21.520 All right, Mr. Murdoch, I sentence you to the State Department of Corrections on each of the

00:33:28.900 murder indictments. In the murder of your wife, Maggie Murdoch, I sentence you for the

00:33:37.900 term of the rest of your natural life for the murder of Paul Murdoch, whom you probably love

00:33:50.560 not so much. I sentence you to prison for murdering him for the rest of your natural

00:33:59.560 life. Those sentences will run consecutive.

00:34:07.560 It's just, it's, yeah. Did you love him? Did you love your son? Did you love your wife?

00:34:13.560 The prosecution's closing argument was he, he did, but he loved himself more. It's absolutely

00:34:20.160 chilling. Ronnie, where does he go now? What, what kind of prison is he likely to go to back

00:34:24.900 with now with our panel? Where's he likely to wind up?

00:34:29.260 Well, this is South Carolina and we don't have country clubs and he's going to be processed as a

00:34:34.960 violent offender. So he'll, and especially given his background as a former lawyer and a former

00:34:40.560 prosecutor, he's going to require protection inside the system. So he's probably going to be

00:34:46.300 in the most secure facility we have here. We have Kirkland, Kirkland Correctional in Columbia,

00:34:52.380 South Carolina is probably where he ends up. He's probably going to be on lockdown most hours of

00:34:58.120 most days. So a 23 and one where you're in isolation for 23 hours and you have an hour in the yard,

00:35:04.900 something like that. Uh, that's foreseeable for a guy like Alex Murdoch.

00:35:09.780 You have to wonder, you never want to see it, but you have to wonder if there are suicidal thoughts

00:35:14.300 in the wake of a verdict like this for a guy like Alex Murdoch. Um, especially given the whole roadside

00:35:19.760 thing. But of course we don't really believe that was a suicide attempt. That was him trying to make

00:35:23.220 it look like there was a mad killer out, uh, get killing off Murdoch's. But you know, when those

00:35:28.220 deputies were around him, like three flanking him, all I could think was there, there actually is a

00:35:33.680 chance that this guy is going to grab somebody's weapon and try to take himself out. You know, this

00:35:37.580 is, this is not a man who's used to what's about to happen to him. And, um, I also had to wonder,

00:35:44.840 you know, Ronnie, I'll ask you this too. Is there the local, is there any chance, you know, his, his

00:35:50.920 buddies in law enforcement do him one last favor and, you know, we should be on the lookout for a

00:35:55.740 Jeffrey Epstein type suicide, you know, attempt or something where they look the other way. I'm just,

00:36:00.480 I'm just wondering how easy that would be for him.

00:36:03.680 Yeah, I think it would be difficult for him. I really do. And, uh, you know, I hate to,

00:36:08.020 I hate to think about suicide. I would think if I'm in his circumstance, it's certainly a natural

00:36:12.240 thought to have. This is a guy who went from an 1800 acre estate to an eight by eight cell for the

00:36:18.780 rest of his life, 23 hours a day. Um, I think it's enough to break any person. So yeah, it is

00:36:25.400 foreseeable. I think it would be difficult for him because he's not going to be with the general

00:36:29.220 population. I will say to the audience, um, just an update on what the defense said. They weren't

00:36:34.820 saying that that witness that juror dismissed was not pro defense. They were saying, well, she said

00:36:38.800 she could keep an open mind. She had, she had, she said she hadn't made up her mind yet. Hold on a

00:36:43.480 second. My team's sending me. Here it is. This is the verbatim of what's that, what was said.

00:36:47.720 Harputlian says she admitted she talked to other people about the case, but not specifically.

00:36:51.520 She clearly, when we interviewed her back in January, said she hadn't made up her mind before the trial

00:36:56.420 started. Do you think she would have helped your case answer from Dick Harputlian? I don't know.

00:37:00.800 She didn't express an opinion to us. She said she's open. She hadn't made up her mind. Okay.

00:37:04.780 That's normal defense speak for she was great. Why did she have to be booted? But I don't think it's

00:37:10.400 a grounds for appeal. The booting of that juror since she's admitting, yeah, that she spoke about it.

00:37:17.120 Yeah. Okay. So she's gone and that's not going to be a grounds. The juror who spoke out,

00:37:20.900 just one other thing, interesting thing of him. They, um, uh, the question was, was he a good

00:37:26.760 liar? And the juror said, yeah, not good enough. Ah, it's like so good. The guy's a, he is a

00:37:33.960 carpenter. It looks like he's in his like thirties or forties and, uh, he saw right through it all.

00:37:38.800 Anyway, fascinating case. We're going to see now quickly, um, where things go. Here's my question

00:37:43.340 for you, Peter. What happens to the lawsuit over the boat? Like the accident that got this whole

00:37:50.700 series of events started where Mallory beach was killed by Paul Murdoch driving that boat.

00:37:55.580 What happens with the buster Murdoch allegations? Some people are speculating with no, with no proof

00:38:01.540 that he may have been involved in the murder of, well, in the, in the death of Stephen Smith,

00:38:06.380 this young gay man who was allegedly killed by a hit and run. But there's a lot of speculation that

00:38:10.800 in fact, it was a beating and there was a lot of buzz about whether buster Murdoch was involved.

00:38:15.440 What happens to the financial crimes? Like there's a lot more that has to be resolved.

00:38:20.580 Does this put an end to all of that here? No, it really doesn't. I mean, I think it,

00:38:25.300 it greases the wheels definitely on the financial crimes. And I think it would be interesting if

00:38:29.920 Alec Murdoch continued to plead not guilty after admitting it on the stand under oath that he did

00:38:34.300 commit those crimes. Uh, the civil cases I would assume are going to continue to try to collect from

00:38:38.940 estates and from the sale of land and from any dollar they can find that's connected to Alec Murdoch.

00:38:44.700 I assume they will continue to go and continue to try to collect there. Um, but I've done my best

00:38:49.400 to try and not watch HBO, Netflix, whatever it is while I'm watching this trial, because I wanted

00:38:54.740 to see what the state was going to bring out. That was credible, relevant, admissible evidence,

00:38:59.500 uh, before the jury and see how they made their decision on that. So now it's kind of the time to

00:39:03.520 dig in on the other stuff, watch some of the documentaries. I'm sure there's going to be a lot

00:39:07.800 in there that would never make it into any court of law, but I would expect that the financial crimes

00:39:12.440 are going to resolve one way or the other criminally. And I think the civil cases, I mean,

00:39:16.220 Ronnie could answer this one probably better than anybody. I think they're going to still continue

00:39:19.340 to try to collect one way or the other from Alec Murdoch, from the law firm, from insurance policies,

00:39:24.220 from the sale of land, any way they can find money to make their clients whole as they deserve to be.

00:39:29.940 Is that true?

00:39:31.620 Oh, absolutely. Yeah. The court has appointed a receiver for all the civil matters and the receiver's job is to be,

00:39:37.640 has been to go out into the countryside and find anything of value, anything of value, Alex Murdoch,

00:39:43.040 convert it to cash, create a super fund, and then allow any victims to come forward and make

00:39:47.720 application against that fund. As far as the boat wreck, there are other, uh, third-party defendants,

00:39:52.500 uh, Parker's convenience store, um, some of the bars downtown in Beaufort that served alcohol to the

00:39:58.300 boys before the boat accident. So those, those claims definitely rock on.

00:40:02.720 Hmm. That's, there's not going away. His legal troubles are not even over though. The big one

00:40:07.880 has been resolved. Okay. Let's shift gears. Cause there's a couple of big cases in the news today.

00:40:11.800 And while I have such an esteemed legal panel, I've got to ask you about them. My number one

00:40:15.560 is Jussie Smollett, juicy Smollett back in the news. Now, uh, this guy who created a race hoax

00:40:23.040 in Chicago claiming that, um, MAGA hat wearers approached him at two in the morning in the middle

00:40:29.020 of the polar vortex in Chicago in 2019. Um, and just happening to bump into Jussie Smollett,

00:40:35.780 who is a black man who used to star in the show empire. They randomly had a noose on them as well

00:40:41.280 as bleach, put the noose on Jussie after recognizing him in the middle of the night, poured bleach on him

00:40:47.620 and yelled, this is MAGA country. It's so farcical. So farcical. So, um, he originally had all the

00:40:53.860 media running with this story. Oh, it's so terrible. America sucks. And poor Jussie. And then of course

00:40:58.980 it was outed as this is a bunch of baloney and the black chief of police out there was basically

00:41:04.060 saying, shame on you. He had a, had a barn burner of a presser saying, how dare this guy do this to

00:41:09.760 the cops and waste our resources and all this stuff in this hoax. Well, he wound up being find found

00:41:14.680 guilty a five out of six counts of felony disorderly conduct, um, for doing all this

00:41:20.000 stuff is fake case. And now Andrew, he is, uh, appealing while he's, he's complaining and he wants

00:41:28.600 a new trial. He feels that he was, um, not given a fair trial that the, uh, they failed to properly

00:41:36.100 investigate his claims that he really was the victim of an actual homophobic attack that they,

00:41:42.500 and that the person who appointed a special prosecutor to try this case had already that

00:41:47.740 judge who appointed this had already made up his mind that Jussie was guilty. What do you make of

00:41:53.660 it? Well, it's all a little chaotic. I mean, we're no offense, Megan, uh, but not everybody has your

00:41:58.940 level of expertise out in the media. So it's, it's kind of hard to figure out what the media is

00:42:02.960 actually reporting. On one hand, he seems to be saying my conviction should be reversed because

00:42:07.140 of double jeopardy. Uh, I don't see how any double jeopardy, uh, it doesn't make any sense to me,

00:42:11.920 but then he also wants a new trial, which would be triple jeopardy. Uh, I'm not exactly sure what

00:42:17.660 he's going for, or frankly, why he would expect a different legal outcome. I mean, the facts in this

00:42:21.780 case do not appear to be ambiguous. Yeah. He came out, um, and Peter and said, um, that, you know,

00:42:28.360 cause you know, the first deal he struck with Kim Fox, this ideological prosecutor who is more of a

00:42:34.000 BLM activist than she is a crime fighter. And she decided not to go after him, even though it was so

00:42:39.080 outrageous what he did. She's like, Oh, it's, he's fine. Move on. And that's why they had this

00:42:43.180 judge step in and appoint a special prosecutor. That doesn't mean you go right to jail. You get a

00:42:47.880 trial there. He got a trial. He was found guilty by a jury of his peers. And you remember he had that

00:42:53.780 infamous moment when he was walking out of the courtroom. I think we have it where he wanted

00:42:57.220 everybody to know that I didn't, I didn't do this. Remember this here. Watch.

00:43:01.620 I am not suicidal. I am innocent and I am not suicidal. If I did this, then it means that I

00:43:08.800 stuck my fist in the fears of black Americans in this country for over 400 years and the fears

00:43:13.840 of the LGBT community. Your honor, I respect you and I respect the jury, but I did not do this and I

00:43:19.600 am not suicidal. And if anything happens to me, when I go in there, I did not do it to myself.

00:43:25.140 And you must all know that. I respect you, your honor. I respect your decision. Jail time.

00:43:35.800 I am not suicidal. I am not suicidal. I am not suicidal. And I am innocent. I could have said

00:43:43.760 that I was guilty a long time ago. The drama, my God. He didn't even have to go to jail.

00:43:50.680 Basically, he's been out on appeal. And now this is his latest Hail Mary, Peter.

00:43:57.360 Yeah, I mean, it's it's an interesting process. We just saw what a lawyer looks like as a client

00:44:02.040 and then what a professional actor looks like as a client. You know, a lot of people that get in

00:44:06.140 these situations think they can talk their way out of it or perform their way out of it,

00:44:09.660 regardless of who they are. I think that he had both Murdoch and Jussie Smollett potentially

00:44:16.060 early on in this case did have the upper hand. But eventually, evidence started to mount and it

00:44:21.240 turned for both of them and they both ended up convicted. I don't see how he turns this around

00:44:26.100 on appeal. We've already talked extensively about how difficult it is to win an appeal.

00:44:29.320 And the evidence was overwhelming in that case. And everybody kind of seemed to see it the same way.

00:44:34.360 And the judge really tore into him during sentencing even more than Murdoch's judge did.

00:44:38.800 So I just don't see this going well for Jussie Smollett in the appellate process.

00:44:42.460 I agree. He's got as much of a chance as he does of winning an Oscar for that performance.

00:44:47.600 Andrew, back to you on Alec Baldwin. He's pleaded not guilty. It's official. He's still

00:44:52.260 maintaining he did not pull the trigger. They have dropped the gun enhancement charge. You are an

00:44:57.920 expert in the law of self-defense when it comes to firearms, too. They dropped the gun enhancement

00:45:03.160 charge, which was a very problematic charge for him because if convicted, it would have been a

00:45:06.700 five years in prison. He's not facing that on the involuntary manslaughter charge that he's still

00:45:13.220 looking at. What do you make of those latest developments? Well, I think the dropping of the

00:45:17.080 gun enhancement was perfectly appropriate. The version of that statute that was in place at the

00:45:21.120 time he shot Helena Hutchins required at least brandishing, intentionally putting someone in fear

00:45:26.380 with the gun. And I don't believe there's any evidence that he intended to put her in fear with

00:45:29.880 the gun. But I mean, I started covering this the day after the shooting and pointed out then,

00:45:35.240 if you point a gun at another human being without first making sure it's not loaded and it discharges

00:45:41.720 and you kill them, that's the dictionary definition of legal recklessness, creating an unjustified risk

00:45:47.240 of death to another person and then they die. That's reckless manslaughter every day of the week.

00:45:53.300 So you like this case against him. I've always felt the reckless manslaughter charge was pretty much an

00:45:57.740 open and shut charge from the very beginning. Wow. So what, how do you, how does that come out?

00:46:02.600 If he, if he goes to trial and he's found guilty on that, what happens to him? 18 months is the

00:46:09.460 maximum sentence in New Mexico. So would he face jail time in the broader context? Not a lot of time for

00:46:14.560 having killed somebody. Oh my gosh. But like, would, would they send somebody without a criminal record?

00:46:19.440 I mean, he's maybe he has a mile. No, maybe no time. I mean, uh, you know, the, the, the gun sentencing

00:46:23.940 would have been a problem as you say, because it was a five year mandatory minimum, uh, but that's

00:46:28.100 off the table. So now he's looking at up to 18 months, but it's at the discretion of the sentencing

00:46:32.420 judge. So it could be no time, could be community service, could be whatever the judge wants.

00:46:37.460 And he could cut a deal. It's getting, it's very ugly between, uh, his team and the, the prosecutors

00:46:42.240 out there in Santa Fe. Ronnie, there are civil cases or civil charges against him, lawsuits against

00:46:47.220 him too. The newest lawsuit was just filed against Alex Baldwin, Alec Baldwin, by three rust crew

00:46:53.100 members, the dolly operator, the set costumer, the key grip, all three of whom alleged they were in

00:46:58.080 close proximity to Baldwin when the gun was fired and have suffered blast injuries from the deafening

00:47:03.120 sound of the shot, as well as they're alleging intentional infliction and so on saying the

00:47:08.000 producers cut corners. They hired people who had been the subject of previous safety complaints.

00:47:12.180 Uh, and they're, they're saying in his capacity as both a producer and an actor, he failed to keep

00:47:18.760 this set safe. What do you, how do you like that civil suit? I like it. I mean, I, when this first

00:47:24.540 happened, I thought it was all nonsense to be perfectly candid, but I read the New Mexico statutes,

00:47:29.160 especially the, the lesser statute that is being charged with criminally. And it's based off on a

00:47:33.900 negligent standard. So negligence is just a failure to use reasonable care. I then looked around a little

00:47:38.960 bit to see, well, is there an industry standard on how you handle these weapons on set? And it seems to

00:47:44.240 be that the prevailing school of thought is assume every gun is real, assume it's loaded and don't

00:47:49.480 point it at anybody. And so if that is the standard and if those standards were breached, then yes,

00:47:54.880 I see a negligence claim there. And yes, that falls into the negligent use of a deadly weapon,

00:47:59.520 which is the criminal statute. Here's the craziness. They still are, are on schedule to resume

00:48:06.400 the filming of this movie, Rust, starring Alec Baldwin. This spring, he will stay in the lead

00:48:13.960 role and as a producer. And I assume they're going to rehire all these people who are suing him. So

00:48:19.940 it's going to be, as the kids say, awkward AF. I don't, I don't envy any of the people involved in

00:48:26.780 this thing. I am so grateful to all three of you for your great legal minds and expertise. Thanks so

00:48:32.040 much for being on here and having such a great discussion. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. All the best

00:48:36.880 guys, Andrew, Ronnie, and Peter. We'll talk again soon. My goodness. All right. Speaking of legal

00:48:40.960 matters, we have an all-star legal panel up next for something we've been really wanting to take

00:48:45.760 a deep dive into an honest, unbiased, deep dive. And that is the massive lawsuit by Dominion

00:48:53.400 against Fox news. We're going to set it up for you. We're going to have a fair and balanced debate,

00:48:58.340 and you're going to know more about this case than you've heard anyplace else. That's real.

00:49:01.920 Not all the span. Next. Now we're taking a deep dive into the lawsuit that many critics of Fox

00:49:10.480 news are hoping will be a nail in the coffin for the network next month. The $1.6 billion defamation

00:49:17.860 trial against Fox news brought by Dominion voting systems is expected to begin. We are on the precipice

00:49:24.420 of trial. So rare that any media company would let it get to this point. So rare that a company like

00:49:30.320 Fox would allow all of its top hosts, top executives, all the way up to Rupert Murdoch

00:49:35.200 to be deposed. So clearly they are ready and willing to litigate this case. But if you listen

00:49:40.860 to the media, most pundits say that's insanity. Most pundits say this is an open and shut case for

00:49:47.020 Dominion as open and shut as you can get in the field of defamation, at least. But is that true?

00:49:53.100 Fox is accused of knowingly allowing false statements about Dominion to be made on air by some of its

00:50:00.060 hosts and guests. The false statements included that Dominion was part of a scheme to steal the

00:50:05.780 election from Donald Trump by using its voting machines to transfer millions of votes to Joe

00:50:11.780 Biden. Again, not true, but it was repeated many times. Over the past two weeks, several filings by

00:50:18.560 Dominion and Fox have been unsealed. So far, we haven't been able to see most of the evidence in

00:50:22.840 this case, but now we're getting a look at it, causing an explosion of headlines. Text messages

00:50:27.800 and deposition testimony from stars like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingram and the very

00:50:34.460 top executives, including News Court CEO Rupert Murdoch, right down to Suzanne Scott, the CEO of

00:50:41.200 Fox News Channel, Viet Dinh, the general counsel. I could go on. They've all been deposed.

00:50:45.720 And now we're getting a look at some of that testimony in the form of excerpts in the party's

00:50:51.660 briefs. Both sides have moved for what's called summary judgment. Will you say, judge,

00:50:55.000 my case is so strong or on Fox's side, my defense is so strong that you shouldn't make me go to trial.

00:51:01.480 You should just enter judgment in my favor on the papers. Look at these deposition transcripts.

00:51:06.460 That's where we are right now. We'll see what the judge does with that. There is no question that

00:51:11.740 these revelations are embarrassing to Fox, nor that they are potentially damaging to its case,

00:51:18.440 its defense. But Fox contends that once the full context is known, they believe the other side is

00:51:23.480 cherry picked certain excerpts that it Fox will prevail in court. But before the trial even gets

00:51:30.400 underway, there are, of course, calls to de-platform the number one network in news.

00:51:38.300 Former MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann has wanted this for years, even back when Shepard Smith,

00:51:45.920 the late Alan Combs and Greta Van Susteren populated the primetime hours of Fox,

00:51:50.720 the network, and I'm not exaggerating, was like Al Qaeda to Olbermann. Listen.

00:51:57.640 We should all make every noise we can to get DirecTV to stop carrying Fox News and to get Verizon to

00:52:07.420 stop carrying Fox News and Comcast and Dish and Cox and every satellite provider and every cable

00:52:13.260 provider and every internet provider. I believe the word is de-platform. In 2007, I said in an interview

00:52:21.720 that Al Qaeda really hurt us, but not as much as Rupert Murdoch has hurt us. Osama bin Laden killed

00:52:29.840 thousands of us. Rupert Murdoch has, in essence, killed the minds of millions of us. Fox News is now

00:52:40.020 a clear and present danger to the safety and security of the United States of America.

00:52:46.360 Okay. He's never been one for drama. Can't you tell? It's unbelievable. All right. So we're going

00:52:51.260 to put that to the side for now. Just give you a flavor of the reaction from some of Fox critics

00:52:56.720 and those on the left who they smell blood and they're loving it, which means you can't trust

00:53:01.500 their coverage. You can't trust their coverage if they're rooting openly for one result, right? It's

00:53:06.980 like we know MSNBC and Keith Olbermann want Fox to fail. Why would I listen to them as neutral

00:53:12.900 arbiters of the case? Well, we, I am in a unique position, I think, to walk you through this because

00:53:19.840 I made my name at Fox News. I made a lot of money at Fox News. I have a lot of friends at Fox News.

00:53:25.500 I have nothing against Fox News. And yet I am a lawyer and I understand defamation law and I see

00:53:32.280 the evidence and that it's not ideal for Fox. These admissions are not great. So we're going

00:53:37.480 to have both sides represented in a pit. In a bit, we've got two lawyers steeped in First Amendment

00:53:40.840 issues, which is ultimately what the case is about. But we begin with Jeremy Peters, who's a reporter for

00:53:45.200 The New York Times. He covers media and its intersection with politics and the law. He's

00:53:50.060 been on this show several times. He's been covering the case for the paper. And in my opinion,

00:53:53.860 he's been very fair in his reporting on this issue. Jeremy, welcome back. Great to have you.

00:53:58.420 I'm glad to be here, Megan. So in a nutshell, Fox is accused of platforming people like Sidney Powell

00:54:08.060 and Rudy Giuliani, who are making these claims about Dominion and also accused of endorsing said

00:54:15.200 claims in certain instances with certain hosts. Is that is that a fair summary? That's completely

00:54:23.820 accurate. And you zeroed in on what's so crucial and what's potentially so damaging for Fox once this

00:54:31.960 goes to trial, which which we assume it will because Fox has not made any efforts, serious efforts so far

00:54:38.420 to settle this. And that's not that people like it's not that, you know, Maria Bartiroma, Lou Dobbs,

00:54:46.080 Sean Hannity hosted Sidney Powell on their show and let her say these outrageous things.

00:54:52.680 It's that they endorsed it. And that was what was so searing about the testimony from Rupert Murdoch

00:54:59.460 that we saw come out this week is Rupert acknowledges, yes, my hosts endorsed these lies.

00:55:06.000 And it's it's one thing like, you know, I write for The New York Times. I can write a story that says,

00:55:11.800 you know, Donald Trump and his supporters are claiming that Dominion voting systems are hackable,

00:55:17.880 that they were made by Hugo Chavez in an attempt to rig elections in Venezuela, and they brought them

00:55:23.580 here and now they're trying to rig the election against Donald Trump. But I also would point out

00:55:28.840 in my story, there's no proof for these allegations in a lot of cases. And the reason why Dominion is suing

00:55:35.260 that but was never uttered by Fox by by some Fox hosts, they gave credibility to Sidney Powell.

00:55:43.820 And to make the case even more damning against Fox, we now know that hosts like Maria Bartiroma

00:55:51.380 and Lou Dobbs had evidence that Sidney Powell was not a credible source. Now, anybody who's seen

00:55:58.620 Sidney Powell or Rudy Giuliani speak can probably figure that out for themselves that these these two

00:56:04.580 people were not credible. But we know things like Sidney Powell was relying on a woman who was so

00:56:11.760 delusional that she claimed to talk to ghosts, and that the wind spoke to her and that she had been

00:56:18.660 decapitated and was capable of time travel. And Maria Bartiroma knew that that was Sidney Powell's

00:56:25.880 source, but had her on the air. Anyway, if if you Megan knew that I coming on your show,

00:56:34.100 was relying on someone like that, would you have me on your show?

00:56:39.280 No, no. I mean, I might because it could be fun to bring that up and see. But but there's no way

00:56:46.520 you you don't mention it. That's for sure. You you absolutely have to be like, you forwarded me your

00:56:51.380 source and your source is a joke. They call that the wackadoodle email. It was something that Dominion

00:56:58.280 alleges was sent by Sidney Powell herself to Maria Bartiromo before she was going on her show. And

00:57:05.940 this is Sidney Powell's source for the thing that got us all spun up over. Did Dominion have you know,

00:57:12.480 did they hack the election? Did they transfer votes from Trump to Biden? And the author says in this

00:57:17.520 email, quote, Who am I and how do I know a lot of this? I've had the strangest dream since I was a

00:57:24.000 little girl that I was intentionally decapitated. And yet I live. The wind tells me I'm a ghost,

00:57:31.080 but I don't believe it. It goes on to say that Justice Scalia was purpose purposely killed at

00:57:35.520 the annual Bohemian Grove camp during a week long human hunting expedition. And that Fox News CEO

00:57:42.520 Roger Ailes, who, by the way, died in 2017 and Rupert Murdoch. This was after that secretly huddle most

00:57:49.000 days to determine how best to portray Mr. Trump as badly as this person's a loon is a loon. Right.

00:57:54.980 And Maria was she saw that this was Sidney's, quote, source before she, quote, platformed Sidney.

00:58:02.540 And you touched on something that's legally relevant here, which is that Maria and Lou Dobbs,

00:58:07.960 knowing this, did not tell their audience that. And that is part of Dominion's case here,

00:58:13.020 is that they had not only possessed this evidence that this woman was a lunatic and she was Sidney

00:58:17.320 Powell's source, but that they hid that from their audience. Another thing that Dominion has claimed

00:58:22.420 they discovered in the process of getting all of these tens of thousands of emails and texts

00:58:29.220 from, you know, Rupert Murdoch on down is that Janine Pirro was bragging to her friends that she

00:58:36.600 was feeding Sidney Powell some of these conspiracy theories. And Janine Pirro failed to disclose that

00:58:43.160 to her audience. That very well could be something that a jury looks at as evidence of defamation.

00:58:49.880 But that's just one other example of why this case is so strong and so extraordinary. I mean,

00:58:56.100 think about it this way. You were listing all the people at Fox from from the corporate parent

00:59:02.400 Fox Corporation on down to Fox News who've been deposed in this case and how unusual that is.

00:59:07.940 To have the chief legal counsel of a company sit for a deposition. I mean, you're the lawyer here,

00:59:15.200 Megan. That is just almost unheard of. And I don't quite know. It's a mystery and maybe more will come

00:59:22.640 out at trial and we'll we'll see that perhaps Fox has a has a stronger case than than we now know.

00:59:29.580 But why the Murdochs wouldn't settle this is is beyond me. They've settled far less serious matters

00:59:37.760 for hundreds of millions of dollars. This is a major threat to the company, not just financially,

00:59:44.320 but reputationally, because at issue at the issue here at its core is that Fox lied to its audience

00:59:52.220 and it knew exactly what it was doing in a relentless and reckless pursuit for profit and ratings.

00:59:58.220 I don't know if it's going to be a major threat to the corporation because Fox, I mean,

01:00:02.660 Rupert Murdoch has more money than God and can he could afford 1.6 billion, but he's not going to be

01:00:08.000 forced to pay that. The Dominion lawsuit, you know, it's not worth 1.6 billion. The company's not worth

01:00:13.240 1.6 billion. They can potentially get punitive damages so it could start ramping up. But I just

01:00:18.960 don't think it's going to be that worth that much. So what it tells me is just my own opinion

01:00:22.460 that they actually let Rupert sit for a deposition. I mean,

01:00:26.420 Irina Briganti, Suzanne Scott, my God, the fact that they let all these people sit,

01:00:30.480 not to mention their stars, tells me they are prepared to try the case. And that means that

01:00:36.700 they're prepared to pay a judgment and they must think it's much smaller than 1.6 billion. That's

01:00:42.200 my armchair quarterbacking. But so let me just jump back because just so this audience understands,

01:00:48.580 because that Dominion stuff lingered out there, you know, and we definitely covered Sidney Powell.

01:00:53.100 And I will say, when she first came out, Jeremy, it was like she had a good reputation at the very

01:00:58.540 beginning. Do you remember this? Because people are like, who is that?

01:01:01.580 Yeah, she's a former federal prosecutor.

01:01:03.100 Yes. And she was a respected appellate attorney. So in the beginning, I was like,

01:01:06.960 whoa, wait, what? Giuliani, I'd put him in a different league in the beginning.

01:01:11.460 She wound up going below him. But I understand at the start, when it's the president of the United

01:01:16.840 States making the allegations directly, and she's his lawyer, and she's a respected person,

01:01:20.980 and she's saying the stuff about demand. At first, you're like, what? So is there a distinction

01:01:25.900 between the original reporting, because it's a three-week period that they're going after Fox

01:01:29.320 and it's reporting, the original and the stuff that happened over the course of the three weeks?

01:01:37.000 So this all kind of kicks off on Maria Bartiromo's show on November 8th. That's the first time

01:01:43.100 anyone on Fox had interviewed Sidney Powell. And from there, that interview gets so much attention.

01:01:50.900 They tease it on Fox and Friends. Other conservative media start to pick it up. I believe I remember

01:01:57.440 hearing Sidney Powell on Rush Limbaugh a couple days later. So she really kind of takes off, even though

01:02:06.000 she's not technically working for the Trump campaign, she's freelancing. And there's no contract

01:02:10.340 in place that shows that the Trump campaign never hired her. So what happens is Fox begins to see

01:02:18.380 that this stuff is raiding, and that their audience really wants it. And the emails and texts reveal

01:02:25.640 that there was such a panic going on, because viewers had turned Fox off in the days and weeks

01:02:31.900 after the election, because Fox correctly called Arizona, and then later, the presidential election

01:02:38.180 for Joe Biden. They told their audience the truth. You know that their decision desk there,

01:02:44.420 run by Arnon Mishkin, is world class. They've gone out on a limb. Yeah, it really is. And people kind

01:02:51.460 of lose sight of that. There are real journalists who know what they're doing, calling the elections at

01:02:57.680 Fox. And they got it right. But that's not what Trump wanted to hear. And it's not what the audience

01:03:03.340 that Fox wanted to hear. So they switched the channel to these other far right networks, Newsmax,

01:03:08.000 OAN. And what you get a sense of in these emails is this kind of frantic scramble. How do we get

01:03:16.120 these people back? You hear Rupert texting Suzanne Scott saying, we're getting creamed by CNN. So they

01:03:23.680 kick in motion this plan to protect the Fox brand. And what that basically entails is driving ratings

01:03:32.040 back up by what we now know to be spreading false statements knowingly. And that's the heart of

01:03:39.140 defamation law. As you know, it's not enough to just allow people on the network to lie. You have to

01:03:47.320 knowingly lie. And this evidence that we've seen goes a long way toward proving that many inside Fox

01:03:54.420 News knew that they were peddling falsehoods to their audience. And you have Rupert Murdoch saying

01:04:00.920 things like he thinks Sidney Powell is crazy. You have producers of shows saying they think she's on

01:04:07.380 LSD. Sidney Powell is on LSD. You have them mocking Trump. And it just peels back the curtain. And as one

01:04:18.880 person described it to me, it kind of shows you how little some of these people really think of their

01:04:26.580 audience that they're they're willing to lie to them and have them swallow these preposterous,

01:04:33.240 fanciful conspiracy theories. Tucker Carlson is another one. I mean, in my book, I reported that

01:04:40.680 truck trucker told people he was voting for Kanye West in 2020. I mean, this is how little he really

01:04:46.940 thinks of Donald Trump. This stuff has never been out there this publicly before. But we're now

01:04:51.820 beginning to see that. Let me ask you something. OK, so I. I can attest that it is possible to

01:04:59.220 think very little of Donald Trump, but to go on to cover him fairly of the same is true of Barack

01:05:05.080 Obama. You know, you can think very poorly about a politician or a president or a lawyer and find a

01:05:12.220 way to report on them fairly. And so the thing that bothers me about this case is you and I know as

01:05:17.700 reporters, a lot of the times you do have to cover people with whom you disagree and you think what

01:05:24.400 they're saying is complete nonsense or you kind of know it's not true, you know. And so you go out

01:05:29.880 there and you maybe you you report it. You report it skeptically. You challenge. But you your opinion

01:05:35.280 isn't news. You're just the reporter. Right. Well, that's the difference between people like,

01:05:44.040 you know, who approach their jobs like you and I do and people like Hannity and Tucker Carlson.

01:05:49.660 I mean, Megan, I remember I was in the room when you asked Donald Trump that question at the first

01:05:55.740 debate in Cleveland about calling women fat dogs and pigs and slobs that you you asked tough questions

01:06:03.580 that put people like Trump on the spot and held them accountable. That's not what Sean Hannity does.

01:06:10.960 That's not what Tucker Carlson has ever really done with Donald Trump, although, you know, he's been

01:06:17.160 more critical of Trump and of some of these voter dominion conspiracy. Tucker did it to Sidney

01:06:22.740 Powell. Remember, he didn't get her on the show, but he he's the one who excoriated her and did a

01:06:28.820 report saying she's a liar. We can prove it. I mean, he wasn't beholden to MAGA to the point where he

01:06:33.640 wouldn't call out BS with her. Right, that's true. But then once the audience turned on him,

01:06:41.700 he stopped talking about it. And a month later, two months later, he holds hosts Mike Lindell,

01:06:47.980 the MyPillow guy who was an even, you know, almost just as bad of a conspiracy theory monger.

01:06:53.520 So it's if there's one theme that kind of emerges from the Dominion complaints and all the evidence

01:07:00.000 that they've told us about so far, it's that Fox saw its audience slipping away. And in order to

01:07:06.640 get them back, they told them what they wanted to hear, even though inside Fox, they knew that

01:07:11.140 that wasn't two points. I understand why Tucker put Mike Lindell on of the MyPillow stuff, because

01:07:16.780 he was being canceled on Twitter and it was it was a story about cancel culture. It wasn't it wasn't

01:07:22.040 to platform his lies about Dominion, though they were mentioned in the segment. But the thing about

01:07:27.240 seeing the audience diminish, that is you're right, that is reflected in those texts. They're in a

01:07:31.600 panic. The audience is mad at them over the correct Arizona call. And they're struggling with how to

01:07:37.840 win the audience back and not to lose too many of them. And I have to say, to me, it's so disappointing

01:07:42.620 that piece of it, because even here on this show, you know, I have a right leaning audience. I have a lot

01:07:47.720 of Democrats, too, who watch and listen. But I got a lot of pushback from people saying, how can you

01:07:53.340 defend the Arizona call or how why aren't you open minded to the Sidney Powell stuff? And, you

01:07:58.800 know, you have to disappoint your audience sometimes if you're going to adhere to the truth. And most of

01:08:03.960 us are in the long term game with our audience. Most of us are in the game of you're going to be sad

01:08:08.780 that I'm telling you sad truth today. But long term, you're going to trust me. You're going to trust

01:08:14.060 me to tell you the truth. And when I tell you the sweet nothings, you're going to know they're real

01:08:17.840 because I don't I'm not in a tank for anybody. I really feel like, Jeremy, Roger Ailes. I don't

01:08:23.340 think he would have let this happen. I really think Roger Ailes would have had his hands on

01:08:26.440 10 and 2 because if nothing else, he defended he defended the news division, which has that same

01:08:31.160 approach that you and I just discussed. Well, and what's so startling, one of the most really kind

01:08:38.000 of remarkable exchanges in everything that we've seen come out is Rupert Murdoch says that they should

01:08:46.180 fire Bill Salmon, who's running the Fox DC Bureau and was ultimately responsible for making the final

01:08:52.940 call on Arizona. Rupert says, let's fire him and give the audience what they want. He was willing

01:08:59.320 to sacrifice somebody's career because he thought it would help the ratings. Somebody who had, you know,

01:09:05.840 done his job the best he knew how and got it right. So it's beyond just, you know, giving the audience

01:09:14.600 of programming that they want. It's now kind of the structure of the network that, you know,

01:09:20.020 the people who work there, it's a much different place with, I think, a much more profit-driven,

01:09:28.460 ratings-driven goal. I mean, that was always, you know, ratings are always important to television

01:09:34.040 networks. But at what cost? And I think that's what you're saying is, you know, this pursuit of

01:09:39.760 ratings and profit led them to just slough off their journalistic responsibility and say, you know,

01:09:48.260 well, we're just going to tell them what they want to hear now.

01:09:51.180 How do you distinguish? I just want to say for the record, before I forget,

01:09:53.920 even Fox is admitting the stuff about Dominion was false. Fox is not saying Dominion actually did

01:09:58.340 do this stuff. And there's, there's a chance they flipped the votes. Fox is admitting that was not

01:10:03.100 true, right? That the people who came on our air and said that were not telling you the truth.

01:10:06.180 So just in case there's anybody out there thinking, well, maybe they did. They did not. That,

01:10:09.540 that didn't happen. Uh, you were misled. Um, so, so that, that doesn't mean the election was perfect

01:10:15.320 or fair in all instances and all the mail-ins and the Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania, all that stuff

01:10:19.320 is still out there, but we're talking about whether votes were flipped from Trump to Biden as Trump

01:10:23.820 alleged by Dominion. So just for the record, but you know, the part of, part of what's so unseemly,

01:10:29.740 Jeremy is I watched MSNBC and CNN mislead us on Russiagate for two years, you know, for two,

01:10:35.560 maybe three, however long that lasted. I actually, this is my opinion. Don't believe those anchors

01:10:42.780 were lying. I believe their ideology led them to want to believe. And I could put some of the New

01:10:50.560 York times in this, in this belt, but like what they wanted to believe it was too juicy. It was too

01:10:55.240 good. And that is what bias they're reporting to where it was wrong for so long. And the, the,

01:11:00.620 the cable nets, you know, they have yet to apologize for it. So I'm just not willing to

01:11:06.420 give them a pass on their dishonesty. This shows some people within a network who did not believe

01:11:10.960 the Dominion stuff for the most part, there wasn't complete overlap with the people who did report

01:11:17.100 it. Like I think Maria Bartiromo and Lou Dobbs are, are closer to the MSNBC anchors who are out there

01:11:24.360 every night with like Russia get Russia get. They believe because they wanted to believe there is

01:11:28.520 no Maria Bartiromo email saying, this is all nonsense. I don't believe a word of this.

01:11:34.320 Right. And that's going to be Fox's best defense, right? I mean, they're not all of these examples

01:11:41.020 of defamation that Dominion alleges are going to get to the jury. I'm sure the judge will toss some of

01:11:47.060 them out. But you don't have that, that kind of smoking gun where a host is saying, I think this is BS.

01:11:55.480 And then turning around and saying something completely different on the air. What you do

01:12:00.940 have though, are producers who are responsible for Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity,

01:12:07.480 et cetera, those kinds of shows saying that they seriously doubt this and that there couldn't have

01:12:13.240 been enough fraud to change the outcome of the election. And Dominion's lawyers will point to that

01:12:19.080 and say, no, but the people responsible, because ultimately this is what Dominion has to prove,

01:12:23.920 that the people who are responsible for the content on those shows knew that they were lying.

01:12:30.220 It's not going to be enough, Fox will argue in court, that Rupert Murdoch thought that Sidney

01:12:34.860 Powell was a nutcase. It's not going to be enough that he thought that Rudy Giuliani was a drunk because

01:12:40.740 Rupert Murdoch wasn't producing these shows. But what, so it's, these are nice headlines. They're

01:12:47.700 salacious, provocative to, to hear Rupert Murdoch saying, yes, they endorsed and I could have stopped

01:12:53.280 this, but I chose not to. How that relates to Dominion's case is a question mark. We just don't

01:13:01.800 know if a jury will believe that because Rupert Murdoch didn't believe it, therefore the hosts

01:13:08.580 knew what they were doing was defamatory. So it's not a slammed on case. And I know that your next

01:13:14.000 guests are going to talk about this dominion or defamation is just so hard to prove. And I imagine

01:13:20.820 that's why Fox is willing to take this to trial. They're rolling the dice here and hoping that it

01:13:26.100 goes the way that most defamation cases do. And that's that jury sides with the media.

01:13:33.180 And we like that. I mean, as media members, we like that. It's such a hard standard,

01:13:36.680 such a high standard to get past Sidney Powell. She's on her own. What she can deal with the lies she told

01:13:42.960 in court. Fine. I don't care what happens to her, but I do care what happens to the press

01:13:47.580 because I'm a member of it. And I understand as you do, we do need to be granted significant

01:13:52.380 latitude to report on claims being made by a president of the United States, his lawyer about

01:13:57.880 something as fundamental as the fairness of the election. And so the standard to sue us for

01:14:02.800 reporting on those things in good faith, you know, if we don't have actual malice in our hearts

01:14:08.620 and knowing it's true or recklessly disregarding whether or not it's true, it should be as high

01:14:13.380 as it is. I don't want to see New York Times versus Sullivan. That's the case that set the standard

01:14:17.280 revised, reversed, changed. So people like us are in a weird position here because you kind of look at

01:14:24.020 some of the decisions behind the scenes and you say, man, that's journalist, journalistically

01:14:28.960 unethical, unsound, embarrassing. But a big judgment against Fox in this circumstance could

01:14:36.000 hurt all of us in a way we don't want. I'll give you the last word.

01:14:41.260 I think that is an excellent point. The law gives us the room to make mistakes as long as those

01:14:47.720 mistakes are honest. Like, look, you and I are constantly under deadline pressure as all journalists

01:14:54.060 are. Things come together quickly, messily at times, and mistakes are going to get made. That's

01:15:00.420 what the First Amendment protects. What it doesn't protect is the right to make those mistakes and

01:15:06.620 knowing exactly what you're doing, to make intentional mistakes. And that's what we are doing.

01:15:14.100 Reckless. That's the thing. So it's like they don't even have to prove knowing. They think they can prove

01:15:17.700 knowing. But even reckless disregard of the truth or falsity of it can get you to actual malice.

01:15:22.980 And that's dangerous. That's like that's where your executive producer is saying,

01:15:26.940 look at this email. She's a nutcase. Her theories are based on that of a nutcase.

01:15:32.820 This isn't true. We've gotten 40 letters from Dominion. You can't say this. And you go out

01:15:37.280 there and say that you can't prove that anchor new, but you could certainly get to reckless

01:15:42.260 disregard of whether this thing she said is true or false. That could be where we are.

01:15:47.980 Jeremy, such pleasure. Thank you for being back on the show.

01:15:49.840 Yeah. Thank you for having me. There'll be lots to talk about in the coming weeks in this case.

01:15:55.200 There absolutely will. All right. Now, up next, we have two sides and we decided we made sure that

01:16:01.400 we got people who understood the First Amendment forward and backward that weren't, you know,

01:16:05.980 hateful towards Fox. We don't want, you know, Keith Olbermann on discussing this.

01:16:10.520 So we've got both sides represented. We're going to take a deeper dive into how this is actually going

01:16:14.420 to go. Joining me now to argue Dominion's side of this argument is Andrew Geronimo. He's the director

01:16:22.400 of the First Amendment Clinic at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. He has tried cases and

01:16:27.200 handled appeals at the state and federal level, and his advocacy focuses on the First Amendment and its

01:16:33.060 related issues, particularly those involving speech and press rights. And here to argue for Fox,

01:16:38.620 not representing Fox, but Fox's side is George Freeman. He's a graduate of Harvard Law. He spent

01:16:44.580 over 30 years as the chief First Amendment lawyer in the legal department of the New York Times. We got

01:16:49.860 a New York Times guy here to defend the Fox News channel. So this will be fun. Andrew, George, welcome to

01:16:55.240 the show. Thank you. Great to have you both. All right. So let me start with you. So, Andrew, you're

01:17:01.040 you're on Dominion's side for the purposes of this argument. What does Dominion need to prove

01:17:06.600 to win a defamation case against Fox? Well, Dominion needs to prove that a false statement

01:17:12.100 was made about it and it was made with a certain mindset. And really, the filings that we've been

01:17:18.800 talking about on air here really go to that actual malice mindset. So what Dominion is proposing

01:17:24.280 it will prove is that Fox News published statement, false statements about it and published those

01:17:31.260 statements knowing that they were false or at least recklessly disregarding the falsity of them.

01:17:37.300 Now, here's George already where I feel like they get into trouble, the Dominion people. And that's

01:17:42.220 not to say I don't believe in the lawsuit, whatever. But this is where they get into trouble. They say

01:17:47.080 that they have 20 false statements on six different shows, 20 false statements on six different shows.

01:17:51.820 The false statements are, you know, by people like Sidney Powell, Dominion hacked, switched votes,

01:17:57.040 stuff like that on six different shows. But when in their effort to prove actual malice and knowledge

01:18:02.640 of falsity, they, for the most part, cite anchors who have nothing to do with those six shows.

01:18:07.520 They they cite they cite Tucker saying this is all baloney. I don't believe a word of this. He

01:18:12.760 wasn't one of the ones who repeated it. They don't cite Maria Bartiromo saying I don't believe it or

01:18:17.660 Lou Dobbs saying I don't believe it or Janine Pirro saying I don't believe it. So is that a problem for

01:18:22.020 Dominion? It's a problem, but not insurmountable, I would say. And that's because this is not like the

01:18:28.400 ordinary story that's worked upon by a producer, an editor and the reporter. And that's basically

01:18:34.240 the little hub who put the story on the air. I mean, this is a story that went on for two months

01:18:39.420 and was, you know, quite visible to the highest people in the company, including Rupert Murdoch,

01:18:48.520 who said himself that he could have done something about this. So it seems to me, as Jeremy said correctly,

01:18:55.420 you know, anyone who's responsible, who had serious doubts about the truth of what they

01:19:00.260 were putting on the air. I think that person's mind view is something that could be used to show

01:19:07.860 actual malice. So you agree, you agree. It might not be Tucker Carlson, but it might well be Suzanne

01:19:13.980 Scott. You agree as the stand in lawyer for the Fox side on this, that it would be enough to show

01:19:20.260 that let's say Maria's executive producer knew that this was baloney and had said it, or somebody

01:19:26.800 with direct editorial control linked to her. Right. Linked to putting that snippet on by putting

01:19:35.100 Sidney Powell on. Yes. You know, if it's Tucker Carlson, who's another host who has nothing in that

01:19:40.700 line of authority on Maria's program, then he would be excludable, it seems to me. But, you know,

01:19:47.600 it was a story where everyone in the company was involved after all. So the top people in the

01:19:52.660 newsroom, I think, are responsible. Now, how do you get to Andrew? Like, how does Dominion get around

01:19:59.440 the fact that this is what reporters do? The president of the United States was saying these

01:20:04.480 things. It was it was crazy time. And all the papers in the world were reporting on these claims

01:20:10.660 and on then Sidney Powell came out of nowhere and made these extraordinary claims. And Giuliani

01:20:14.840 eventually echoed them. So how does Dominion get past the fact that Fox as a news organization has

01:20:19.680 an obligation to tell the audience what's being said? Well, certainly there will be an issue for

01:20:25.380 them. So part of their defense is that nobody would take some of these as part of Fox's defense

01:20:32.280 is that some folks wouldn't take these as statements of fact and that they should be viewed

01:20:36.040 more as statements of opinion. I think that'll be a serious issue in the case. And I think,

01:20:41.700 you know, especially along the lines of in a First Amendment defense to a defamation case,

01:20:48.500 a lot of times what you're trying to find is a false and defamatory statement, as I mentioned

01:20:52.340 earlier. So some of the defense that Fox will put in are things like, you know, Bartiromo saying that,

01:20:59.160 do you have proof of that? If you say if you were asking somebody for their proof, to me, that indicates

01:21:04.460 that it's a not a statement of fact or not, you're not presenting it as a statement of verifiable fact.

01:21:08.800 So I think really a lot of the attention on the recent filings are really about evidence of actual

01:21:15.100 malice and what folks in the Fox Newsroom knew. But I do think that there are very good reasons for

01:21:22.000 us to maintain strong First Amendment protections for the remaining elements of a defamation claim,

01:21:27.140 specifically whether they were statements of fact or statements of opinion.

01:21:30.320 What about that, George? Because, you know, you understand as a journalist,

01:21:34.440 you have an obligation, especially when the other side's not there. You're going to put you're

01:21:37.440 going to platform Sidney Powell. You have a high obligation to grill her going to make making these

01:21:42.720 incendiary claims. Is it enough, do you think, for Fox to have had Maria say, like, can you prove it?

01:21:48.120 What's your proof?

01:21:48.920 Yeah, I think that that's really the nub of this case, because this is one place where good journalism

01:21:55.580 and good law diverge. For the most part, they really go parallel with each other, which is good,

01:22:00.920 right? But in this area where it's repeating crazy statements by public officials, the law and the

01:22:09.120 and good journalism totally diverge. I mean, I report I reviewed thousands of articles at the Times and the

01:22:16.980 most troublesome with a kind of article which would say that Governor Cuomo said that Mayor Koch was

01:22:23.240 accepting bribes. And the reporter said, this is BS. I don't believe it. But yet they wanted to publish

01:22:30.440 it because it was newsworthy that the governor was saying something as crazy as that, as aggressive

01:22:37.060 about the mayor, right? So what do you do? Because I would have to say legally, you're in trouble.

01:22:43.760 We're repeating something that's libelous. And you guys don't believe it. That's actual malice.

01:22:49.340 On the other hand, shouldn't the readers, shouldn't our viewers know that Cuomo is making such an

01:22:56.160 irresponsible statement? I'm using those two names hypothetically, of course. But that really is a

01:23:02.680 problem. And that's what this case is about. As it happens, and this is the weird part, which I don't

01:23:07.400 understand, there's a defense that mirrors this issue exactly. And yet that defense hasn't been very much

01:23:15.460 used or discussed in the context of this case. And that's called neutral portage, which was a defense

01:23:21.460 that was founded simply for this exact dilemma that I'm talking about.

01:23:25.880 But George, I think it's because there isn't one in New York State. New York State doesn't recognize that.

01:23:30.400 That's the problem. It's in a Delaware court. No, but it's in a Delaware court, but it's being

01:23:35.840 decided with New York law. Both parties have agreed to that. That's the problem. They could use that

01:23:40.220 privilege. That doesn't mean that a judge in a very visible case couldn't recognize the privilege as

01:23:47.460 many judges have done around the country. It's still a minority view, but it's growing and courts do

01:23:55.180 occasionally recognize it, even though prior courts in that jurisdiction hadn't. And this seems like

01:24:01.840 the perfect case for it. So I'm surprised. I mean, yes, you're right that technically New York law

01:24:07.900 doesn't recognize it, although the federal courts in New York do recognize it. I understand that. But

01:24:14.160 it's such a perfect case to bring that issue out, because this is a privilege that should exist.

01:24:19.640 Because how else do you answer the dilemma that I just put as to Cuomo's statement about Koch,

01:24:24.720 is the answer? I know, it's the impossible position. You've got to hide that from public

01:24:27.020 view. It's the impossible position. Can you imagine if Fox didn't cover any of this? That

01:24:31.660 didn't cover what Trump's, but there was, I mean, I will say, I understand they were in a tough spot,

01:24:36.620 but like we were in a tough spot too, in a way, because we didn't know whether Sidney Powell was

01:24:40.900 telling the truth or not. I certainly didn't see her whack-a-doodle email. At first, I went to it

01:24:45.340 saying, this is a respected trial attorney, an appellate attorney. I'm going to listen to what

01:24:49.440 she's saying and react appropriately, accordingly. And it took not that long, frankly,

01:24:54.300 but, you know, you had to keep an open mind to see whether it was true. And then very soon

01:24:58.240 thereafter, it was like, there's no proof. I don't, I don't need to know whether it's true.

01:25:01.420 There's zero proof. She's put nothing up. And by the way, you know, Fox got there too. Tucker is

01:25:06.340 the one who fairly early on went out and just absolutely killed her. We actually have a sound

01:25:10.320 bite of that for people who want to be refreshed. Here it is. Watch.

01:25:15.680 Powell has been all over conservative media with the following story.

01:25:18.820 This election was stolen by a collection of international leftists who manipulated vote

01:25:24.420 tabulating software in order to flip millions of votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.

01:25:29.080 On Sunday night, we texted her after watching one of her segments. So we invited Sidney Powell on

01:25:33.600 the show. We would have given her the whole hour. We would have given her the entire week actually,

01:25:37.740 and listened quietly the whole time at rapt attention. But she never sent us any evidence,

01:25:42.880 despite a lot of requests, polite requests, not a page. When we kept pressing,

01:25:47.400 she got angry and told us to stop contacting her. When we checked with others around the Trump

01:25:52.100 campaign, people in positions of authority, they told us Powell has never given them any

01:25:56.180 evidence either, nor did she provide any today at the press conference. But she never demonstrated

01:26:01.560 that a single actual vote was moved illegitimately by software from one candidate to another, not one.

01:26:08.420 Maybe Sidney Powell will come forward soon with details on exactly how this happened and precisely

01:26:12.820 who did it. Maybe she will. We are certainly hopeful that she will.

01:26:16.840 Okay.

01:26:17.400 I mean, that's Andrew, that's to me, that's compelling that yes, they can mention Tucker as

01:26:23.860 much as they want. And his text, you know, behind the scenes, like, oh my God, this woman's a loon.

01:26:29.300 What he said on the air matched up with she's a loon. I kept an open mind. I tried to report the story.

01:26:35.520 She's a lunatic. Bye.

01:26:36.920 And I think for Dominion's part on this, what they would argue is that a fair report or a neutral

01:26:44.460 report privilege wouldn't apply in this case because it requires the folks doing the reporting

01:26:50.240 to do so dispassionately and free from other bias. So I think that's their legal argument here. But I

01:26:56.680 think you're exactly right about the points that have been aired and the sort of the juxtaposition

01:27:02.880 of those points with other things that other folks were saying on the air.

01:27:06.680 One thing I would say is simply that the early statements, I think, are subject to a much stronger

01:27:14.540 defense than the later statements, because as time goes on, there's more and more evidence against

01:27:20.220 these allegations. There are more and more emails that Dominion has sent to Fox saying they're not

01:27:26.640 true. And so the later statements are probably going to be the more problematic ones.

01:27:31.940 So what is your view, George, is Fox's best defense? Oh, yeah, go ahead.

01:27:35.980 I was just going to say that. So, you know, there is an issue, right? Fox is a very good point that

01:27:41.180 newsworthy statements ought to be made. And that's what this neutral reportage privilege is about.

01:27:45.820 But it does have two conditions, one of which Andrew just mentioned that the that Fox shouldn't be

01:27:51.700 endorsing it. It should be reported neutrally and objectively. And the second is that the speakers who

01:27:57.480 you're repeating have to be responsible. And that raises the question as to Giuliani and Powell that

01:28:03.040 I don't want to get into. But who knows how a jury would come out on that?

01:28:06.580 I mean, I'm kind of mad. I'm ticked off at them at Powell and Giuliani who are in this

01:28:13.220 position of public trust and just completely misled us and did it with a straight face.

01:28:18.840 It's just like to me, I feel for the Fox anchors in large part because they were in a very tough

01:28:24.820 position. And I know now we're supposed to pretend that, oh, they're the only ones who worry about

01:28:28.560 money. Bullshit. That's just not true. You don't think CNN and MSNBC and ABC and NBC and CBS worry

01:28:35.420 about the bottom line. You're fooling yourselves. Like, I'll give you this soundbite from Chris Hayes

01:28:40.160 the other night and MSNBC. OK, because there's a text from Tucker to Laura and Sean early on in

01:28:46.060 this saying he's mad that a reporter went out there and fact checked. I think the media is

01:28:50.500 missing this. They're claiming he's mad. She fact checked Trump, who is saying all the

01:28:55.080 stuff. As I read his email, he's mad. The reporter fact checked Sean Hannity, who was repeating the

01:29:02.140 Trump claims. And having worked at Fox for many years, I can tell you there's a very firm rule.

01:29:06.200 Don't shoot inside the tent. You're not supposed to attack the other anchors or the primetime hosts

01:29:10.800 either way, because publicly they take enough incoming. I think that's what he's mad about.

01:29:16.040 But I just think that, you know, his concern about what this kind of fighting was doing to

01:29:22.820 the stock price, while, yes, you can make it sound nefarious, is honest. And here's Chris Hayes

01:29:27.760 trying to pretend he has absolutely no financial motive in doing his reporting. Just listen. It's

01:29:32.200 soundbite 19. I will never look into this camera and lie to you. And I won't toe a line I don't

01:29:39.980 believe in because I'm worried about the stock price. I swear that I have never, ever in my entire

01:29:46.600 life given a single second's thought to the Comcast stock price. I can only speak for myself,

01:29:52.820 but that's not why I do this. Not for the stock price. OK, can I just say I believe him that he

01:30:00.960 hasn't looked at the stock price, but there is zero chance he doesn't check his ratings every day.

01:30:05.960 Why does he care about his ratings? Because if he doesn't get good ratings, they're going to cancel

01:30:09.340 his show and his million dollar salary goes away. He does care about the money. News is not completely

01:30:15.420 altruistic. That's that's the dirty secret of news. You know, unless you're watching. Well, I don't

01:30:21.380 know. Arguably PBS, but not really. There is a profit motive for everyone involved in it. George,

01:30:27.540 I'll start with you on that one. Yeah, I mean, and it depends where you are. Different. I think

01:30:33.480 newspapers are different from magazines. Magazines are different from TV. Network TV is different from

01:30:38.640 tables. So it's very hard to draw a big picture there. If I could go back, though, to what you've

01:30:44.260 been really focusing on, Megan, is that I think this case is going to come down to a question that we

01:30:50.500 haven't really discussed, which is, do you look at this one statement at a time and look at the 20

01:30:55.600 statements or let's say the 10 statements that end up going to the jury and look at the technical,

01:31:01.280 whether all the technical legal elements were met for each of those statements? Or, as my guess is,

01:31:06.860 Dominion is going to try to urge, can you look at the whole thrust of the coverage? Because that would

01:31:14.080 be, it seems to me, an easier thing to claim. And it's an easier thing for the jury to deal with.

01:31:19.920 Whether that judge will allow that, whether that technically meets the rules of defamation law,

01:31:25.600 is, I think, an open question. You know, there are questions sometimes whether a headline can be

01:31:29.560 defamatory. And the press says, no, you can't look at the headline. You got to look at each specific

01:31:34.340 sentence in the article. And this is kind of, this mirrors that question in this context. Can you look

01:31:41.080 at the thrust of a month of coverage where these people were invited again and again and again,

01:31:46.040 regardless of the exact wording of what the host said? Or do you have to look at the exact wording

01:31:52.320 because that's what counts? And that's what the law tends to say should count. So that's, I think,

01:31:58.180 going to be a very important issue as to how the judge handles that. And in the end, you know,

01:32:02.980 the jury can probably do whatever it wants. So how the jury handles that?

01:32:07.020 I think you're exactly right. What do you think of that?

01:32:08.780 I agree 100% with George. And I think, you know, not to stray too far from my assigned side here,

01:32:15.200 but, you know, I think it's a dangerous proposition to say that we can start suing

01:32:19.080 media entities or speakers generally for the general thrust of their statements without

01:32:25.040 specifically identifying what's false and defamatory in a statement. You know, I think,

01:32:30.440 I'm glad that you mentioned New York Times versus Sullivan and the protection that it offers,

01:32:35.120 um, because I do think it's very important to consider the underlying, uh, policy reasons behind

01:32:41.960 that case, uh, which are that everything added to the field of libel is taken from the field of

01:32:47.200 free debate, right? Free speech should be about discussing these things and dealing with these

01:32:51.480 things out there. And I don't think we want to stray too far from focusing on very specific

01:32:55.800 false statements into just what is the general, you know, vibe of these statements overall. Um,

01:33:02.240 and, and, and if I could, I think, I think that is, uh, you know, I have every respect for,

01:33:07.380 for the jury system and how, and putting these things in front of a jury. Uh, you know, we've got

01:33:11.540 defamation cases that we hope to present to juries, um, in the coming year. Uh, but I think one of the

01:33:18.180 underlying, um, another underlying reason about New York Times versus Sullivan is it can be very

01:33:23.900 dangerous to put things like this in front of a jury who might be incentivized to, um, find against a

01:33:30.040 defendant for reasons other than their false and defamatory statements that cause damage to,

01:33:34.800 uh, the plaintiff. You know, Megan, one irony is that, uh, if Dominion were to win a big verdict,

01:33:41.660 if anything, that would strengthen Times v. Sullivan. And I think be a step to, uh, beat up

01:33:47.860 the folks that are judged, this is Thomas and Gorsuch who are thinking about repealing it because that

01:33:53.640 would prove that if you have the goods, then you win such a case so that there's no, as I think

01:33:59.740 Justice Gorsuch that there's an absolute immunity that Times v. Sullivan gives the media. So in effect,

01:34:05.340 by losing a case where the jury finds that there were calculated falsehoods in the words of the

01:34:11.760 Supreme Court, uh, Sullivan would have worked. And I think that would take the wind out of the sails

01:34:16.860 of those who are attacking it. So it's kind of ironic, but in a way, a loss would be a gain.

01:34:23.220 Again, I don't want to mess with New York Times v. Sullivan. I think it's, uh, as a member of the

01:34:26.260 media, but also I'm a public figure who gets defamed regularly. So in that second role, I hate

01:34:30.820 it, but in the former role, I love it. And I think it's sound legal precedent, um, argued by our own

01:34:36.680 friend, Floyd Abrams, uh, who's been on this show before and is a prince of a guy. They, they do Fox

01:34:42.340 cites this in its brief. And I, and I think it's telling they're getting into the law and they say

01:34:46.580 in Blankenship versus Fox, uh, the court held that Rupert Murdoch's and Suzanne Scott's, she's the CEO

01:34:52.180 knowledge was irrelevant. Their knowledge of whether something's true or false because quote,

01:34:57.320 it is the state of mind of the speaker that is relevant. And I really think Andrew, if this

01:35:03.280 dominion brief was like, Maria has texts saying she knows it's BS. And then Maria platform Sydney

01:35:10.620 without giving her much of a challenge. There was some challenge, but it wasn't that robust.

01:35:15.620 Lou Dobbs knew it was bullshit. You know, when he platformed and gave a complete pass,

01:35:21.080 there's a reason Lou Dobbs got fired. Uh, their, their case would be stronger, but the, like,

01:35:26.380 look at all these primetime anchors who are stars who believe it. And then not showing,

01:35:31.480 I mean, in Hannity's case, they have one example that they were the ones platforming Sydney and

01:35:37.480 allowing this to go like, that's, I think the biggest weakness for dominion.

01:35:41.300 I think that's right. Um, I think they are, uh, you know, trying to conflate all of these folks

01:35:46.900 in an attempt to say that this is the overall message that the network itself was conveying.

01:35:52.180 Uh, and the network is a defendant. So they're trying to, you know, group all those folks

01:35:56.320 together as much as possible, uh, to hold the network itself responsible for, um, what was

01:36:02.280 aired on it.

01:36:04.260 It's just, as George said, if they can group the network together and talk about thrust of coverage,

01:36:09.900 dominion is likely to win. If we have to go statement by statement and talk about individual

01:36:14.880 anchors and state of mind, Fox is more likely to win. And that's why we're at impasse right now

01:36:20.880 between the two parties. So it's a lot more complicated than many pundits are leading people

01:36:25.440 to believe the texts are not good for Fox. They don't make Fox look good. That's true.

01:36:31.620 But legally, that doesn't mean this is a slam dunk for dominion. Uh, got to go quickly. So final word,

01:36:37.580 will it go to trial? Yes or no, Andrew?

01:36:39.060 I think it does. Yes, George, it's certainly not going to be dismissed by a judge because

01:36:44.900 there's too many facts that are in dispute. Uh, I think it's a case that goes to trial and there's

01:36:49.640 no settlement, uh, negotiations going on as far as I understand. Buckle up, buckle up buttercup.

01:36:56.560 It's going to get even uglier. Thank you guys both so much. We appreciate it. Uh, we're going to

01:37:00.580 continue to watch the case. We will report on it as the news comes in. Thanks for listening

01:37:07.180 to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - March 03, 2023

Murdaugh Convicted, and the Dominion-Fox News Lawsuit, with Andrew Branca, Jeremy Peters, Peter Tragos, Ronnie Richter, and More ｜ Ep. 505

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