A little before 4 P.M. on Tuesday, Judge Eric Davis uttered six words that brought an audible gasp to the courtroom in Wilmington, Delaware, where opening statements were set to begin in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6-billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News: “The parties have resolved the case.” Minutes later, one of Dominion’s lead attorneys, Justin Nelson, took to the lectern for a press conference on the courthouse steps—a pleasingly dramatic cliché—and announced that the company had agreed to settle the case for $787.5 million. He was flanked by his fellow-lawyers and by Dominion’s executives; just behind them, a man in camouflage cargo shorts held a sign that read “FOX + GOP = FASCIST PROPAGANDA.” “Lies have consequences,” Nelson said. “The truth does not know red or blue.” He framed Dominion’s victory not just as a matter of money but a win for American civic integrity. “For our democracy to endure for another two hundred and fifty years, and hopefully much longer, we must share a commitment to facts,” Nelson said. “Misinformation will not go away. It may only get worse.”
Ever since Sunday night, when Judge Davis delayed the start of the trial by a day, Wilmington had been a hotbed of speculation about whether the proceedings would go forward. Many of Fox’s arguments had been crippled in pretrial hearings, and the company was facing the likelihood that some of its top stars, including Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, would be called to testify, along with Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, the father-and-son pair who run Fox News’ parent company. Tents had been set up behind the court to shield the expected high-profile witnesses from view as they entered and exited the courthouse. No photos or recording were allowed inside the courtroom, but Rupert Murdoch, who is ninety-two, would have to sit in a witness box and answer questions as dozens of journalists looked on. On Tuesday morning, the jury had been sworn in and its members—six men and six women—stared out with interest at the packed room. In one case, an alternate juror, who looked slightly panicked, blurted out, “Sir, I can’t do this!” and was escorted out of the courtroom. In hindsight, he might as well have been speaking for Fox.
Opening statements were supposed to be heard following lunch recess, but as reporters chatted and typed and furtively checked their e-mail and Twitter—Davis had been emphatic that spectators could not use their phones and suggested offenders could be held in contempt of court—the lawyers had still not begun delivering their remarks. After two hours, we were still waiting. The wooden benches in the two-hundred-person courtroom were uncomfortable—I overheard one Dominion attorney say they reminded him of going to Mass—and soon people were standing up, stretching, and trying to figure out what exactly was going on. My seatmates and I kept track of when Dominion and Fox’s lead attorneys entered and exited the room. Dominion’s lawyers, who had squeezed into the front row of the public seating area, legal boxes stuffed under their feet, seemed relaxed. They were whispering affably to one another and politely ignoring reporters’ attempts to chat them up. It was a little harder to tell what the Fox team was thinking. When Dan Webb, the network’s lead attorney, was in the courtroom, he sat, silent and stooped, facing away from the spectators.
Suddenly, at around 3:50 P.M., the entire P.R. team for Dominion left the courtroom in a hurry. Judge Davis soon entered, and within a matter of minutes, he had announced the resolution, dismissed the jury, and thanked both Fox and Dominion for “the best lawyering” he’d seen in his years on the bench. Media reports, he said, had misconstrued his position somewhat—an oblique reference to the fact that outlets had reported on Davis’s occasional stern words for Webb. A statement from Fox soon arrived by e-mail: “We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false. This settlement reflects FOX’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards. We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues.” It was the sort of non-apology that only an enormous team of lawyers could write.
At the press conference, Stephen Shackelford, another Dominion attorney, told the assembled crowd, “Money is accountability. And we got that today from Fox.” The legal drama, however, wasn’t over for the cable news network. Smartmatic, another voting-machine company that was the subject of conspiracy theories in the wake of the 2020 election, is suing Fox News for $2.7 billion.
“Is there anything else in this settlement besides money?” someone asked from the crowd. Would Fox air an apology? Issue a retraction? The Dominion team walked away from the microphone. As the crowd broke up, I hurried back toward my hotel. I saw Shackelford, from a distance, embrace a group that looked like it could be his family, then head up a hill away from the courthouse. I approached him, and introduced myself. “It’s a great day for my client,” he said. Shackelford had spent the whole day prepping for the opening statement he’d never delivered. He seemed genuinely giddy and did a comic exhalation of breath, bending over and sort of shaking out the sillies. I asked if we would see an on-air apology. Shackelford smiled and snapped back into friendly professionalism—he wasn’t the right person to ask.
At my hotel entrance, Hootan Yaghoobzadeh, a co-founder of Staple Street Capital, Dominion’s owner, didn’t have an answer about an on-air apology, either. Ask the P.R. team, Yaghoobzadeh said. Dominion’s statement on behalf of its C.E.O., John Poulos, didn’t mention a public apology, but it was a little more direct than Fox had been: “Fox has admitted to telling lies about Dominion that caused enormous damage to my Company, our employees, and our customers,” the statement read. At my hotel, I got to the elevator bay at the same time that an entire team of pleased-looking Dominion lawyers did. As they filed in, I introduced myself and wanted to know if they had any answer to my questions about apologies. Any chance they wanted to give me the kicker for my story? They all just smiled as the elevator door closed in my face. ♦
An earlier version of this article misspelled Stephen Shackelford’s name.
