After the latest revelations against Fox News in Dominion Voting Systems' defamation lawsuit, my MSNBC colleague Steve Benen posed an interesting question: “Shouldn’t Fox settle this case in the hopes of making it go away?”
The answer might hinge on another question: Does Dominion want to?
I thought about those questions when I interviewed former House Jan. 6 committee investigator Tim Heaphy on Wednesday. (Check out that interview here, which doesn't include the excerpts below.)
Speaking with Heaphy, a former federal prosecutor, I thought about the important public function that the Jan. 6 hearings served. That led me to wonder, in turn, whether a trial against Fox News could serve a similar public function. Here’s what Heaphy said when I asked him that:
“Yes, absolutely,” he said, adding:
The trial process is what is producing all of this discovery material, all these text messages and all these documents which expose the hypocrisy of the Big Lie. ... There’s an educational function. ... It also sends a message that you cannot irresponsibly make allegations against people or corporate entities without foundation, without a basis.
Heaphy told me that he “always believed that the legal system is a forum in which people can address grievances and get justice, and there is an important sort of public discourse benefit, because a lot of that plays out in a public way.” He added:
My understanding — and again, it’s just from reading the newspaper — Dominion doesn’t want to settle this case. They want to try it for that reason. They want a lot of these facts to be laid bare in a courtroom in a public proceeding. We’re headed there. There may be more of these kinds of behind-the-scenes allegations, and I do think that there’s a useful long-term benefit for people to understand.
So, as the case heads toward a potential trial next month, it's worth considering what's at stake not only for the voting company and the "news" network but for the country as a whole. Fox (which denies the allegations and vigorously contests the suit) is likely hoping that it doesn't become a public lesson for the country at trial — though no matter how this case ends, it may be too late for that.