"I'm gonna open up the libel laws,” he said in 2016, so that “when they write hit pieces, we can sue them, and they can lose money." Once elected, he whined that, “Our current libel laws are a sham and a disgrace and do not represent American values or American fairness.” But the First Amendment limitations on defamation liability that Trump and other right-wingers have long railed against well could be the only thing standing in the way of Fox News facing as much as $2.7 billion in damages in suits brought by voting technology companies that Trump and his favorite Fox hosts falsely accused of fraud in the wake of the November election. The network’s chief lawyer, Viet Dinh—who reportedly “runs the company day-to-day” and serves as a “kind of regent” for Rupert Murdoch’s most valuable media property—has publicly shrugged off the suits, declaring that the “First Amendment” will “protect” the broadcaster from liability.