Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Andrew Harnik/Associated Press
- Rupert Murdoch told Jared Kushner his team said Biden's ads were more creative than Trump's.
- The email exchange, from September 2020, was included in new Dominion court documents.
- Dominion is suing Fox News for defamation related to election fraud claims involving the company.
Fox News chief Rupert Murdoch warned Jared Kushner that President Donald Trump's advertisements ahead of the 2020 election may not have been on par with Joe Biden's.
The September 2020 email exchange between Murdoch and Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and adviser, was included in newly released court documents in a defamation lawsuit filed against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems.
"Jared, Know you are spending less on tv than Biden. However my people tell me his advs are a lot better creatively than yours," Murdoch, who founded Fox News, wrote in an email to Kushner about six weeks before the election. "Just passing it on."
Kushner responded by saying the Trump campaign had some "new creative" coming and that he would personally be reviewing their content "every week until the end as the real money is starting to be spent on TV and Digital to move voters universes and turn out the base voters."
In a follow-up email, Murdoch told Kushner their new Sunday ad was "an improvement" but that one of Biden's was "extremely good," adding: "Or I think so! Will send it."
In a statement provided to Insider, a spokesperson for the Fox Corporation said the ad Murdoch was referencing had already been publicly shared on YouTube weeks prior and had aired on TV before he flagged it to Kushner.
"Dominion has been caught red handed again using more distortions and misinformation in their PR campaign to smear FOX News and trample on free speech and freedom of the press," the statement said.
Dominion, an election technology company, is suing Fox News for defamation, claiming the network helped spread election-fraud conspiracy theories about the company. Fox has dismissed the claims and sought to have the lawsuit thrown out.
In a filing that was released last week, Dominion accused Murdoch of sharing "confidential information" with Kushner ahead of the election.
"During Trump's campaign, Rupert provided Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, with Fox confidential information about Biden's ads, along with debate strategy (providing Kushner a preview of Biden's ads before they were public)," lawyers for Dominion wrote.
Fox at the time said Dominion was "mischaracterizing the facts."
Experts previously told Insider's Madison Hall and Jacob Shamsian that if the allegations were true Murdoch could be hit with fines by the Federal Election Commission, as providing that information to the Trump campaign could be seen as an "in-kind" donation that wasn't reported.