Tucker Carlson Wrote He 'Passionately' Hated Trump in Text to Colleague, Court Filing Reveals

Roy Rochlin/Getty; Doug MIlls-Pool/Getty Tucker Carlson (left) and President Donald Trump

As Fox News host Tucker Carlson embraced Donald Trump publicly on his primetime opinion show, he privately texted a colleague that he hates the former president "passionately," according to communications released Tuesday in a legal filing.

The court filing is part of a $1.6 billion lawsuit brought against Fox News by voting equipment company Dominion Voting Systems, which was the subject of conspiracies of widespread election fraud and other wrongdoing in the wake of the November 2020 presidential election.

The company has argued that some of the people spreading the lies about election fraud — including, it argues, Fox News personalities — privately acknowledged they did not believe the conspiracy theories, but still amplified them on-air, allegedly in order to get ratings.

In one of the exchanges made public Tuesday, Carlson texts a colleague: "We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can't wait."

"I hate him passionately," Carlson added, per The Washington Post.

The text exchange was dated Jan. 4, 2021, two days before pro-Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's victory in the presidential election. Rioters believed that the election had been rigged against Trump, a lie spread by many conservatives without supporting evidence.

RELATED: In Testimony, Sean Hannity Said He Did Not Believe 'for One Second' the 2020 Election Was Fraudulent

Spencer Platt/Getty Stop the Steal rally on Jan. 6, 2021

In another exchange made public this week, Carlson wrote: "We're all pretending we've got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it's been is too tough to digest. But come on. There really isn't an upside to Trump."

Carlson's text messages are among a large tranche of private conversations and under-oath testimony from executives and hosts at Fox News, which Dominion has argued in its complaint "sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring Dominion in the process."

Fox has argued, in a counterclaim, that Dominion "mischaracterized the record" and "cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context."

In a statement sent to PEOPLE, a spokesperson for Fox accused Dominion of using "distortions and misinformation" in what it called a "PR campaign to smear FOX News and trample on free speech and freedom of the press."

RELATED: The Donald Trump Allies That Dominion Voting Systems Has Sued Over 2020 Election Conspiracies

Richard Drew/AP/Shutterstock Tucker Carlson

The private conversations are striking, especially in light of the statements made publicly, and on air, by Fox News personalities. Carlson, for instance, has as recently as this week been working to downplay the Jan. 6, 2021, riots, calling those who participated "ordinary and meek" Trump supporters, whom he has described as "sightseers."

But in private messages sent just hours after the riots began, Carlson was criticizing Trump, texting a colleague that the then-president was "a demonic force, a destroyer. But he's not going to destroy us."

Despite privately doubting the fraud claims, Fox News personalities worked to ensure the network didn't publicly shoot them down, with other messages showing that Carlson texted both Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, "Please get her fired," in reference to a reporter who fact-checked a Trump tweet about Dominion, noting there was no evidence that any votes had been destroyed.

"Please get her fired. Seriously… What the f---? It's measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke," Carlson wrote at the time.

RELATED: In Text Messages, Fox News Host Tucker Carlson Called Trump 'Demonic Force,' Doubted Election Fraud

ABC News points to another private text sent from Carlson, in which he said that claiming Dominion had rigged the election would be "shockingly reckless ... If there's no one inside the company willing to talk, or internal Dominion documents or copies of the software showing that they did it ... as you know there isn't."

But on air just two nights later, Carlson openly flirted with the idea that electronic voting machines might not be secure, saying: "You've heard a lot over the past few days about the security of our electronic voting machines. This is a real issue, no matter who raises it or who tries to dismiss it out of hand as a conspiracy theory. Electronic voting is not as secure as traditional hand counting. Period. It never will be as secure."

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Executives at the network were seemingly worried about how some of its top personalities were speaking on air. In one email made public Tuesday and highlighted by the Post, Fox's billionaire co-founder Rupert Murdoch emailed the company's CEO, writing: "Maybe Sean and Laura went too far," a reference to primetime stars Hannity and Ingraham.

In another email sent by Murdoch to former House Speaker Paul Ryan, the Fox News chairman wrote that Hannity was "privately disgusted by Trump for weeks, but was scared to lose viewers!" In the same email, Murdoch referred to conspiracies about the election being rigged as "nonsense."

It seemed many at the network were scared to lose viewers — which, Dominion argues, led the network to court the conspiracies on-air, even as it distanced itself from the lies in private.

In another message referenced in Dominion's filing, former Fox News politics editor Chris Stirewalt worried that the network was "losing the silent majority of viewers as we chase the nuts off a cliff."