Influential Fox News Channel opinion-show hosts and top executives engaged in hand-wringing over what they thought were conspiracy theories being made on their airways by allies of Donald Trump regarding the 2020 election, according to internal emails, text messages and depositions excerpted in a new court filing.

“Sidney Powell is lying,” prime-time host Tucker Carlson wrote to a producer about the Trump lawyer, who claimed voting technology companies “flipped” Trump votes to Biden, according toThe Washington Post, which reviewed the filings released Thursday.

The concerns appear to have reached the highest level of Fox, including company founder Rupert Murdoch, who wrote about claims by Powell and fellow Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani, saying, “Terrible stuff damaging everybody.”

[When Dominion began to file its lawsuits over defamation in the wake of the election, plenty of people thought Trump and his allies would benefit from the discovery process. However, thus far nothing has come out of the Dominion files to support the allegations, and these internal discussions that Dominion now has and has filed in court seem to go a long way toward arguing actual malice. Bear in mind, though, that it doesn’t necessarily go ALL the way, and that a jury might see it differently.

Fox News still claims that this is a First Amendment issue:

“There will be a lot of noise and confusion generated by Dominion and their opportunistic private equity owners, but the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan,” Fox said in a statement Thursday evening.

That’s true enough, but if Fox hosts aired and endorsed these claims while having *knowledge* that they were false, then that gets past the Sullivan standard. The question will be between “knowledge” and opinion or suspicion, likely. And it will be fascinating to watch the case unfold — assuming Fox doesn’t settle it first. — Ed]

[Update: Let’s not forget that Tucker was among the rare hosts who actually called out Sidney Powell for promulgating nonsensical arguments without any evidence. That’s worth remembering. — Ed]