"...the media was stocked with alarming stories that proved empty or false."

Maricopa County Elections Director Reynaldo Valenzuela testified at Republican Kari Lake's election challenge trial Wednesday that mail-in ballot reviews were done at election officials' homes in 2020 with no observers present.

Valenzuela also confirmed officials still have the ability to do so now.

Lake is contesting Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs' win last November by approximately 17,000 votes, or 0.7 percent of the more than 2.5 million ballots cast statewide.

Whistleblower Jacqueline Onigkeit, who worked as a ballot reviewer at MCTEC in November, had testified before Valenzuela that she thought it was "odd" when she and her fellow reviewers were sent home at 7 p.m. as counting continued of mail-in ballots.

"Why did you think it was odd?" Lake attorney Kurt Olsen asked.

"Well, because we had observers that were constantly watching what we were doing [at the designated vote-counting area]. But there was, I'm assuming, no observers there [at the recorder's office] who was watching what they were doing," she replied.

In light of this testimony, Blehm questioned Valenzuela whether observers are allowed in the county recorder's office or at the Mesa location.

Valenzuela responded that observers are allowed in "any general area," but it's not a legal requirement.

He went on to explain that as a "certified election officer" he and others can do signature verification in their offices with no observers present.

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The details: The letter — from Carlson lawyer Bryan Freedman to Fox officials Viet Dinh and Irena Briganti — said Fox employees, including "Rupert Murdoch himself," broke promises to Carlson "intentionally and with reckless disregard for the truth."

• The lawyers accuse Fox executives — which two sources say are Dinh and Murdoch — of making "material representations," or promises, to Carlson that were intentionally broken, constituting fraud.
• Notably, the letter alleges Fox broke an agreement with Carlson not to leak his private communications to the media and not to use Carlson's private messages "to take any adverse employment action against him."
• Multiple outlets have reported on Carlson's redacted communications from pre-trial discovery documents and have suggested that they led to his ousting.

The letter also alleges Fox broke promises not to settle with Dominion Voting Systems "in a way which would indicate wrongdoing" on the part of Carlson and not to take any actions in a settlement that would harm Carlson's reputation.

• Carlson was told by a member of the Fox board that he was taken off the air as part of the Dominion settlement, two sources briefed on the conversation told Axios.

• According to a source familiar with Carlson's position, his lawyers believe that the misrepresentations alleged by Carlson amount to a breach of contract because they created additional terms of Carlson's employment that were then broken by the company.
• "These actions not only breached the covenant of good faith and fair dealing in the Agreement, but give rise to claims for breach of contract, and intentional and negligent misrepresentation," the letter says.

A Fox News spokesperson said it is "categorically false" that Carlson lost his job as part of the network's $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems.

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