Fox News claims First Amendment protects its January 6 Capitol riot coverage

Fox News on Wednesday (August 23) argued in the court that its hosts and guests were just raising questions and “presented a puzzle to unravel” when they continuously and falsely suggested that January 6 rioter Ray Epps was a government agent who had allegedly orchestrated the Capitol attack.

The defence argument was made in a defamation suit that was filed by Epps against the right-wing network. In his suit, he claimed that Fox figures, including its former host Tucker Carlson, ruined his reputation by repeatedly suggesting that a false-flag plot for hurting Donald Trump was led by him. He added that the claims made by the host were baseless.

Carlson, in around 20 episodes of his talk show, kept on talking about the conspiracy theory which claimed Epps was an undercover operative who “helped stage-manage the insurrection”.

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Reportedly, Carlson argued that Epps was recorded on camera appealing to people to enter the Capitol, but did not ever enter the building himself.

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A 10-minute video was shared on YouTube in which Carlson claimed that it was “highly strange” that Epps was not arrested and suggested that the coverage of Times on Epps was attempting to “cover something up”.

“Tucker Carlson (and/or his guests) described the known (and undisputed) facts” about Epps, Fox claimed in the filing. “Then they asked questions and speculated about answers," it stated.

'Fox News genuinely asked questions and looked for answers'

Meanwhile, thenetwork in its argument further said, “The format of the segments involved setting out facts and raising queries on those facts, which indicated that issues surrounding (Epps) presented a puzzle to unravel, not a matter on which there were definitive answers.”

The arguments depend on the notion that the hosts of Fox News genuinely “asked questions” and “looked for answers” about the role of Epps in the January 6 insurrection. However, a previous defamation lawsuit which was filed by Dominion Voting Systems had showed that many Fox hosts operated in bad faith which raised claims on-air that they didn’t actually believe.

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A Delaware federal judge is being asked by Fox News to throw out the lawsuit.

The defamation case is one of those many pending similar suits that were filed after the 2020 election and the false claims of Trump that the results were rigged. Earlier this year, Fox News had to pay $787 million to settle with Dominion and is still facing a $2.7 billion lawsuit filed by Smartmatic, a voting technology company.

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