Defamation Drama, Recession Odds, Axelrod Fatigue

Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon guide to the latest news from Puck.

First up today, Eriq Gardner reveals the inside players and litigation strategy behind Dominion v. Fox, the epic multi-billion dollar lawsuit that could become the biggest media libel case in American history—if the Murdoch family ever allows it to go to trial.

Then, below the fold, Tara Palmeri explains why David Axelrod has become the bane of the Biden White House. And Bill Cohan swings by The Powers That Be to chat with Teddy Schleifer about how Wall Street is handicapping the current pre-turndown pseudo-recession.

The first thing to understand about these libel suits is how invasive they are for Fox News. The network has already turned over minute-by-minute ratings charts, emails about ratings, MyPillow advertising revenue, most communications with the White House, internal documents that include mentions of both “Trump” and “election,” and so forth. But that’s not good enough, say Dominion’s lawyers, who are demanding to see Sean Hannity’s texts. They are also wondering why, after providing nearly a half million documents about their company, that Fox has only offered thousands of their own. A discovery referee agreed, and pushed Fox to keep digging. Meanwhile, the potential witness list is getting personal: James Murdoch was recently served a subpoena for documents and a deposition next month. Dominion wants to see communications between him and his father; between him and his brother Lachlan Murdoch; and anything that precipitated his decision two years ago to leave the company’s board...