Alex Wagner Airs Secret Recordings Showing Giuliani and Trump Aide Telling Fox News They Couldn’t Prove Voter Fraud

MSNBC’s Alex Wagner aired potentially devastating recordings of Rudy Giuliani and a campaign official for Donald Trump telling Fox News they lacked receipts regarding the former president’s claims about fraud in the 2020 election.

Earlier in the day, the recordings were played for the judge in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox Corp., the parent company of Fox News. Dominion is suing the network after hosts and guests suggested and claimed the company’s voting machines were rigged against Trump. Fox denies wrongdoing and says its coverage is protected by the First Amendment.

The recordings were provided by former Fox News producer Abby Grossberg, who has filed two lawsuits of her own against her ex-employer. She alleges the network allowed a culture of sexual harassment and misogyny.

Dominion’s lawyers argued the recordings should have been handed over during discovery. The judge in the case agreed and sanctioned Fox for withholding evidence.

Wagner aired some of the recordings on Wednesday’s Alex Wagner Tonight, explaining that Grossberg and her attorneys gave her show the audio. The first recording featured an off-air conversation between Giuliani and Fox host Maria Bartiromo on Nov. 8, 2020:

BARTIROMO: I’m going to be asking you for as much evidence as you can tell us about these lawsuits. Whatever you can tell us in terms of evidence would be really helpful. Ok, great.

GIULIANI: I can tell you exactly what we have.

BARTIROMO: Perfect. And what about the software, this dominion software

GIULIANI: That’s a little harder–

BARTIROMO: Seems troubling.

GIULIANI: –to tell you right–it’s being analyzed right now. I mean, there are a couple of races that have been reversed because the Democrat was triple-counted, two already in Michigan. Now, whether that applies for the whole state or not, I can’t tell you yet.

BARTIROMO: This Dominion software, does Nancy Pelosi have an interest in it?

GIULIANI: I’ve read that. I can’t prove that.

Wagner then aired an audio snippet of a Fox News producer speaking with “Trump campaign officials” on Dec. 5, 2020:

FOX NEWS PRODUCER: Are any of the machines–I know it was on War Room the other day with Steve Bannon. Have any of the machines been looked at? He had said that one was looked at in Georgia.

TRUMP CAMPAIGN OFFICIAL: I’d have to check on that in terms of Georgia. I know during the audit, they did check on those machines. They’re really–if we can just go off the record for one second?

FOX NEWS PRODUCER: Yeah, of course. I don’t want us to say it if it’s not. That’s why we’re checking.

TRUMP CAMPAIGN OFFICIAL: Yeah, I would–I think they have looked at the machines. When the secretary of state did its audit, there was a lot, I think a fair bit of looking at the machines. The audit came in pretty darn close to what the machine count was with the receipts. So, I don’t know the outcome of those, but our understanding – again, this is from the secretary of state’s office – was that there weren’t any physical issues with machines on those inspections

Dominion is seeking to prove that Fox News knowingly allowed its on-air talent and guests to make false claims about its machines and voter fraud in the 2020 election.

Private communications from Fox News employees previously obtained by Dominion and publicly released in court filings show several Fox News employees questioned the veracity of election fraud allegations by Trump and his allies.

Jury selection in the civil trial begins on Thursday.

“As our lawyer explained in court today, we learned that there might be responsive audio recordings for the first time on March 20 from Grossberg’s errata sheet,” Fox News said in a statement to Mediaite. “Our attorneys then accessed the forensic image of Grossberg’s phone and reviewed the recordings, which were produced within 15 days of first learning of their existence.”

Some legal experts believe Dominion has a strong case.

“I would not want to be in the position of defending Fox here,” said CNN chief legal analyst Elie Honig the day before the aforementioned recordings were released. “I think they’re headed for a full-blown journalistic and legal disaster.