Ted Cruz Pleaded With Fox to Show ‘Specific Evidence’ of Fraud
Ted Cruz just owned himself on tape. The Texas Senator backed Supreme Court challenges to election results, and in his own state, supported an effort from Attorney General Ken Paxton to have results overturned in four other states. On Jan. 6, Cruz voted against the certification of votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania, and continued to spread claims of fraud long after Biden was sworn into office.
Behind the scenes, however, Cruz was cautioning Trump allies that they would need “specific evidence” of fraud if they wanted to prevail in court. In a new recording obtained Thursday by MSNBC’s Ari Melber, Cruz tells Fox Host Maria Bartiromo that they would need “actual facts” if their legal challenges to the election were to be taken seriously.
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“It can’t just be, you know ‘somebody tweeted this,’” Cruz says, “It’s got to be demonstrable facts that can be laid out with evidence because that’s what a court of law is gonna look to — not just an allegation but actual facts.”
Cruz went on to say that he was hopeful that “when Rudy [Giuliani] comes on the show tomorrow, he had some of those facts, and I hope the legal team continues to lay out the specific evidence, because that’s what it’s gonna take to prevail in court.”
On Tuesday Fox News settled a historic defamation lawsuit brought against them by Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million. Dominion had accused the network of airing false statements claiming the company had a role in orchestrating election fraud on behalf of President Joe Biden.
The recording of Cruz’s conversation with Bartiromo was created by a former Fox News producer who is suing the network. Abby Grossberg, who worked as a producer for Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson, alleges that the network coerced her into changing her testimony in a deposition given to Dominion. Previous tapes made public by Grossberg included audio of a Trump campaign official admitting “there weren’t any physical issues with [Dominion] machines on those inspections.”
But Fox’s role in spreading Trump’s baseless claims of election interference was just a small fraction of a widespread effort by the former president’s allies to subvert democracy and secure a second term for Trump. Of the 62 lawsuits that challenged the results of the election, 61 failed in court.
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