Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump have had a very bad week with their numerous court cases and smoking gun evidence in the Dominion Voting Systems versus Fox News defamation case could end both of them.

And to make matters worse their “Trump card” on the Republican controlled US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been busted taking multi-million-dollar bribes over the last 20 years from Republican megadonor Texas billionaire Harlan Crow.

What Donald Trump does or doesn’t do isn’t of great interest to this website except from the viewpoint of Trump’s future being, in part, closely linked to Rupert Murdoch, the crimes of Murdoch’s media assets and that Trump might take down Rupert Murdoch with him or vice versa.

I’ll start with the Clarence Thomas bribery scandal first and then look at the smoking gun recorded evidence in the Dominion matter that could put both Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump in jail.

The Clarence Thomas story only broke last week (6/4/23) on the ProPublica website:

IN LATE JUNE 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef.

If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary: He was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too.

For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks. (Click here to read more. When you click on the link keep scrolling down until the article appears)

ProPublica published a follow up article on the 13/4/23:

In 2014, one of Texas billionaire Harlan Crow’s companies purchased a string of properties on a quiet residential street in Savannah, Georgia. It wasn’t a marquee acquisition for the real estate magnate, just an old single-story home and two vacant lots down the road. What made it noteworthy were the people on the other side of the deal: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his relatives.

The transaction marks the first known instance of money flowing from the Republican megadonor to the Supreme Court justice. The Crow company bought the properties for $133,363 from three co-owners — Thomas, his mother and the family of Thomas’ late brother, according to a state tax document and a deed dated Oct. 15, 2014, filed at the Chatham County courthouse.

The purchase put Crow in an unusual position: He now owned the house where the justice’s elderly mother was living. Soon after the sale was completed, contractors began work on tens of thousands of dollars of improvements on the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home, which looks out onto a patch of orange trees. The renovations included a carport, a repaired roof and a new fence and gates, according to city permit records and blueprints.

A federal disclosure law passed after Watergate requires justices and other officials to disclose the details of most real estate sales over $1,000. Thomas never disclosed his sale of the Savannah properties. That appears to be a violation of the law, four ethics law experts told ProPublica. (Click here to read more)

As you would expect a lot of media are reporting “Clarence Thomas, the most conservative justice on the US supreme court, is facing renewed calls for impeachment“. It’s interesting that all the media I have read on the subject are reporting Clarence Thomas “accepted undisclosed luxury gifts from a Republican mega-donor” when they should be using the word “bribes”, not “gifts”.

You might ask what Clarence Thomas and his corruption has to do with Rupert Murdoch as there doesn’t seem to be any links except being Republican supporters.

Update 17/4/23: I published the below video on YouTube with further information relevant to this article:

Firstly, some others and I believe that Rupert Murdoch’s decision to defend the Dominion defamation case seems to be based on Murdoch thinking he will get a favourable decision in the Republican controlled US Supreme Court irrespective of any judgment against the Murdoch controlled Fox Corp and/or Fox News in the lower courts. This view is supported to some degree in a recent Vanity Fair article (May 2023 Issue) which shows Murdoch wanting to control the US Supreme Court.

The below is a quote from the Vanity Fair article and I left the first few lines about Google and fossil fuel in to show how Murdoch profits from controlling political parties and politicians:

Trump more than delivered. One source with direct knowledge of their conversations told me Murdoch lobbied Trump to punish Facebook and Google for siphoning his newspapers’ advertising revenue. In 2019, Trump’s Justice Department launched an antitrust investigation of Google. In 2021, Google settled and struck a lucrative content-sharing deal with Murdoch. The source also said Murdoch pushed Trump to open up land for fracking to boost the value of Murdoch’s fossil fuel investments. The Trump administration released nearly 13 million acres of federally controlled land to fracking companies. Murdoch, who sources say has become more pro-life in recent years, encouraged Trump to appoint judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade. “Rupert wanted Trump’s Supreme Court justices in so they could make abortion illegal,” a source who spoke to Murdoch said. Murdoch’s alliance with Trump made Murdoch more powerful than ever but carried a personal cost. (Click here to read more)

The key part from the above is “encouraged Trump to appoint judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade. “Rupert wanted Trump’s Supreme Court justices in so they could make abortion illegal,”.

“Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States generally protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion.” (Click here to read more)

Whether Murdoch helped overturn Roe v Wade is not the key part for this article. It is Murdoch trying to control the US Supreme Court via Trump which he seems to have achieved. And as we know with Murdoch’s control of politics in the UK, Australia and the US Murdoch calls in favours whenever he wants. And that is where Clarence Thomas comes in as he clearly does favours for cash whether directly or via his wife Ginni Thomas who is a Republican Party activist.

The Clarence Thomas bribery scandal has made it harder, but not impossible, for dodgy US Supreme Court judgments to protect Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump in their numerous court cases. The reason it has made it harder is because any dodgy US Supreme Court judgments in Murdoch’s and/or Trump’ favour would automatically raise the publics suspicion of judicial bribery.

I wonder how many times Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump have met Clarence Thomas, his wife Ginni Thomas or other US Supreme Court judges?

President Donald Trump shakes hands with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2017.

Rupert Murdoch’s The Wall Street Journal has come out defending Clarence Thomas taking bribes from Texas billionaire Harlan Crow and attacking ProPublica. I wonder why?

From a 2007 article titled “Clarence Thomas and Rupert Murdoch”:

The long-awaited publication of Clarence Thomas’s memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son,” out Monday, makes you wonder: how come none of the presidential candidates have said a word about the Supreme Court in any of their debates? Three sitting justices are expected to resign in the next four years–and they’re all on the liberal side: John Paul Stevens, David Souter, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The publication facts behind Thomas’s book ought to be discussed by all the candidates: he received an advance of $1.5 million in 2003 from HarperCollins, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. If you thought the Court dealt with any issues of relevance to Murdoch, you might call it a conflict of interest for Thomas to accept that payment–far more than any sitting justice ever received from any single source. At least you might mention the fabled “appearance of impropriety.” You might call the $1.5 million a thank-you gift from Murdoch for services rendered. You might even wonder if it might be a subtle suggestion to other justices who will be ruling on Murdoch-related issues in the future.

Of course Thomas could avoid that “appearance of impropriety” by recusing himself for the rest of his career from any case raising issues concerning Murdoch, Fox, the First Amendment, copyright law, libel, or any other issues in media or communications law. That would give him a lot of time off. (Click here to read more)

Justice Clarence Thomas, who was appointed a US Supreme Court judge in 1991, has been on Rupert Murdoch’s payroll to the tune of $millions since 2003 and probably still is with book royalties to some degree. No wonder Murdoch isn’t settling with Dominion, despite all the smoking gun evidence, as he has at least one US Supreme Court judge in his hip pocket.

All Rupert Murdoch has to do is give instructions to Justice Clarence Thomas for a return on previous payments. Alternatively Murdoch could give Justice Clarence Thomas another advance for a second book of say $5 million or $10 million this time and what you have is legalised bribery the Murdoch way.

Too many court cases make it impossible to juggle the lies and deception

The major problem facing Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump is that they have multiple court cases and investigations against them and what evidence comes out in one court case can then be used in the other court cases.

For example, last week former Fox News employee Abby Grossberg revealed in her recent lawsuit against Fox, “previously unaired tapes of Fox News host Maria Bartiromo talking in November 2020 with then-Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. In the tapes, Giuliani told Bartiromo he “can’t prove” some of his allegations about Dominion, and Bartiromo expressed interest in promoting Powell’s fundraising website on her broadcast.”

“Dominion lawyer Davida Brook said Fox had only turned over the material last week, after Bartiromo’s former senior producer Abby Grossberg revealed in a lawsuit that the recordings existed. “We keep on finding out about missing documents in this case, not from Fox, but from others,” Brook said.”

“The judge overseeing Dominion Voting Systems’ massive defamation case against Fox News said Wednesday that he plans to appoint an outside attorney to investigate whether the right-wing network lied to the court and withheld key evidence, and sanctioned Fox over the matter.” (Click here to read more)

The tapes are smoking gun evidence because Dominion are suing Fox News and Fox Corp for falsely claiming Dominion helped rig the 2020 Presidential Election against Trump and the tapes show that Fox knew they were lying.

If Abby Grossberg had never instituted proceedings against her employer Fox News, before they sacked her, “claiming “Fox’s legal team coerced, intimidated, and misinformed Ms. Grossberg as they “prepared” her in connection” with giving evidence in the Dominion defamation claim against Fox” then it is highly unlikely the Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell tapes would have ever become public as Murdoch and Fox would have continued to hide the tapes from Dominion and the court.

Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump and the smoking gun Rudy Giuliani / Sidney Powell recordings

Donald Trump, who has recently been hit with criminal charges, is under investigation for numerous other alleged crimes. In the last few days is has been reported that Special Counsel Jack Smith is also investigating Trump for financial fraud:

“Federal prosecutors probing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol have in recent weeks sought a wide range of documents related to fundraising after the 2020 election, looking to determine if former president Donald Trump or his advisers scammed donors by using false claims about voter fraud to raise money” (Click here to read more)

If Donald Trump is charged with scamming donors “by using false claims about voter fraud to raise money” then the Rudy Giuliani / Sidney Powell tapes would be key evidence.

So, you can see above the Abby Grossberg court case has had an impact on the Dominion defamation case because of the Rudy Giuliani / Sidney Powell tapes and could have an impact on possible criminal charges against Donald Trump. But the impact of the numerous court cases having impacts on their other court cases also has an international flavour with Lachlan Murdoch.

Lachlan Murdoch v Crikey just got a whole lot harder

Lachlan Murdoch started suing Australian media website Crikey after they published an article calling “Murdoch” an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol.

The final hearing for Lachlan Murdoch v Crikey defamation case was meant to be March 2023 but Lachlan decided to add 2 more respondents, the CEO and major shareholder of Crikey, which pushed the final hearing out to October 2023.

The hearing should have been finished by now, but the delay has enabled Crikey to add the evidence from the Dominion matter, which has been spilling out online over the last few weeks, to their defence. This embarrasses Lachlan Murdoch and he failed to stop the Dominion evidence from being filed but he’ll will likely have another go at getting the Dominion evidence struck out.

The Dominion evidence has allowed Crikey to turn up the heat in their defence:

“Fox Corporation chief executive Lachlan Murdoch was directly involved in election fraud news programming at the network and is “morally and ethically” culpable for the ensuing January 6 Capitol riot, Private Media, publisher of Crikey, alleges in an updated defence in its legal battle.”

Private Media’s updated defence leans on recent filings made in a separate lawsuit launched against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems in the United States, to add a new defence known as “contextual truth”. The new defence will be mounted in addition to the defences of public interest and qualified privilege already pleaded.

The filings relied upon include depositions from both Lachlan and his father Rupert, and Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott, which suggest that Lachlan was in regular contact with Scott to discuss the network’s coverage of the 2020 US election, from November 2020 up until rioters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. (Click here to read more)

The Lachlan Murdoch v Crikey defamation case has quickly spiralled out of control for the Murdochs just as much as the Dominion v Fox News case has. But there isn’t any turning back now and the hole Rupert and Lachlan have dug for themselves just keeps on getting deeper and deeper.

The evidence and claims of corruption surrounding Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump is breaking so fast there is too much for one article but the above gives a good overview and brings most people up to speed with their key problem of juggling multiple court cases. I will publish more detailed videos over the next few days and weeks on my YouTube channel which you can follow for free by clicking here and hitting the subscribe button.

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