'It's a No Brainer': Fox News Benches Top Executive for $23 Million
The chief legal officer at Fox News is leaving the network in the wake of a devastating $787.5 million defamation settlement with Dominion Voting Systems over claims that Dominion helped rig the 2020 presidential election.
Viet Dinh will leave Fox Corp. at the end of the year, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Dinh was a “close confidante” of network CEO Lachlan Murdoch and the godfather to one of Murdoch’s sons, according to Mediaite.
“His strong position at the company waned following the settlement, some people familiar with the matter said,” the Journal reported.
Instead of attempting to settle the Dominion case out of court early on, Dinh clung to what The New York Times termed an “overly rosy scenario” involving free-speech protections.
“He insisted that Fox was on firm legal footing and could take the case, if need be, all the way to the Supreme Court, where he believed the company would prevail on First Amendment grounds,” the Times reported.
Dinh reportedly refused to settle the case until hours before it went to trial, which allowed the opposing legal team to obtain copies of internal memos during the discovery phase.
Those communications indicated Fox leadership had been skeptical of the election-fraud claims that had been reported on Fox News programs.
“Fox’s legal case was severely hindered when the judge ruled that it wasn’t entitled to use a First Amendment defense,” the Journal reported.
Unnamed sources linked Dinh’s exit directly to the astronomical defamation settlement, Mediaite reported.
“He screwed up and mishandled all the legal and passed [Dominion] $787 million when they should’ve settled this right away,” a “source close to the Murdoch Camp” said. “He hung in there for a while only because he’s Lachlan’s son’s godfather.”
Another source told the outlet, “He cost the company $800 million in the lawsuit with another pending. It’s a no brainer: you don’t settle for $800 mill and jeopardize the prized asset of Fox News without a head rolling.”
Dinh’s exit from the company will bring him $23 million as part of his separation agreement, the Journal reported. He will remain a consultant to Fox for two years at $2.5 million per year.
“We appreciate Viet’s many contributions and service to Fox as both a board member of 21st Century Fox and in his role over the last five years as a valued member of Fox’s leadership team,” Murdoch said in a statement quoted by the Times.
Dinh’s replacement has not been named.
The company still faces a $2.7 billion lawsuit from a second election technology company, Smartmatic, as well as two shareholder lawsuits related to the Dominion case.
It is also facing a defamation suit filed last month by Ray Epps, a central figure in the Capitol incursion event of Jan. 6, 2021, the Times reported.
Before he joined Fox, Dinh served in the George W. Bush administration, where he was the chief author of the Patriot Act as an assistant attorney general, according to the Journal.
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