Fox shelled out an eye-popping $70 million to Maria Bartiromo, who built her profile giving softball interviews to Donald Trump, according to newly unsealed documents.
The MAGA-obsessed anchor of Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures and Fox Business’s Mornings with Maria and Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street is one of the people named in the $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit brought by voting machine company Smartmatic against Fox Corp.
Newly released documents in the lawsuit have shed light on behind-the-scenes discussions between key anchors and executives at the Rupert Murdoch-owned network in the weeks after the 2020 election—and exposed Bartiromo’s hefty paycheck.
Bartiromo, 58, took home over $70 million during her years at Fox News, The Guardian reported, citing her deposition in the case.
The New York City native began hosting on Fox Business and Fox News in 2014 and gained prominence during Trump’s first term for her reliably unchallenging interviews with the president.
She has kept up her cozy relationship with Trump, 79, in his second term, even dining with him at the White House in April. She later fawned over the dinner on Instagram, writing, “Thank you so much, President Trump, for your leadership, friendship, and protection of this great nation.”
Smartmatic sued Fox, Bartiromo, Fox host-turned-U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro, former Fox host Lou Dobbs, and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani in 2021 over false claims that the company interfered in the 2020 presidential election.
Bartiromo was the first person to interview Trump after his loss in the 2020 election. During their conversation, Trump claimed that the election was a “fraud” and “rigged.” Rather than challenge him on his lack of proof, Bartiromo followed his lead, saying, “This is disgusting and we cannot allow America’s election to be corrupted.”
The documents released in Smartmatic’s lawsuit against Fox also revealed that former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon had urged Bartiromo in November 2020 to run for U.S. Senate in New York, The Guardian reported.
“We want you to run against Schumer,” Bannon wrote in a text message. “This is your moment.”
Meanwhile, a previously unseen email showed Murdoch, now 94, vigorously defending Fox News amid MAGA backlash over its 2020 election coverage.
“We are very proud of our coverage – both Fox and News – especially since the election when we have repeatedly urged Trump to accept the result. His denunciations only confirm the work of all our journalists to find and report the truth,” Murdoch wrote to journalist Lachlan Cartwright in 2021.
A New York state judge on Monday denied Fox’s motion to pause Smartmatic’s lawsuit. The network had filed the motion after federal prosecutors in Florida charged Smartmatic with money laundering and other crimes over an alleged foreign bribery conspiracy.
In a statement, FOX News Media told the Daily Beast, “While we respectfully disagree with the court’s decision not to pause the case at this time, it doesn’t change the fact that Smartmatic—a company that describes itself as putting “integrity over profits” —has been indicted by a federal grand jury for international bribery and money laundering and has a criminal trial currently scheduled for next Spring. We continue to look forward to defending our First Amendment rights on summary judgment and at trial.”
Smartmatic told the Daily Beast, “Today’s decision is an important victory for Smartmatic as we progress in our efforts to hold Fox accountable for its lies. The court made clear that Fox’s attempts to delay accountability won’t work, and its day of reckoning is coming. By keeping the litigation on track, the ruling ensures the focus remains on Fox knowingly lying to its viewers without care for the damage and destruction those lies would cause. We look forward to presenting the full truth at trial.”
