It could take a decade to undo damage to the Republican Party caused by Fox News promoting election fraud claims, says former GOP official

• Georgia's former Lt. gov., Geoff Duncan, discussed Dominion's Fox News lawsuit.
• He accused the network of pushing election fraud claims that had damaged the GOP.

Republican former Lt. gov. of Georgia Geoff Duncan said it would take a decade to undo the damage to the GOP caused by Fox News in allegedly promoting conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

Speaking on CNN's 'State of the Union' Sunday, Duncan, who is an analyst on the network, addressed claims in a lawsuit released last week by election machines company Dominion.

Dominion is suing Fox News for $1.6 billion, arguing it promoted baseless claims that the company was involved in a vast conspiracy to deprive Donald Trump of victory in the 2020 presidential election.

A group of conservative campaigners last year claimed Dominion had changed its voting machines to deny re-election to Trump. There has been no evidence for voting fraud in the presidential election.

The lawsuit claims that top network hosts and executives believed the claims to be be false, and in some cases privately mocked them, yet promoted them anyway in an apparent bid to retain the loyalty of its large audience of Trump supporters.

Duncan said that in pushing the false narrative, Fox News was pandering to its audience's prejudices for the sake of the bottom line.

"What happened on Fox News was hard for the Republican party, right?" said Duncan. "It allowed, it might take a decade to unwind some of those, the fanning of the flames of all these conspiracy theories, and it was painful to watch and listen to."

He said that the news media must find a better balance between the for-profit business model and news that's in the public interest.

Dominion claims the weight of evidence it has compiled is so great that it should be awarded a summary judgement before the case even goes to to trial.

The network in a statement said that its right to broadcast the information was protected by the First Amendment.

"There will be a lot of noise and confusion generated by Dominion," said a spokesperson, "but the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution."

"Dominion has mischaracterized the record, cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context, and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law."

Duncan served under Republican Georgia Gov Brian Kemp, who was attacked by Trump and his allies for refusing to back their bid to overturn the 2020 election. Duncan has previously criticised Trump and his allies for promoting false election fraud claims.