Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, who was arguably the network’s most high-profile promoter of election conspiracies that cost Fox millions in payouts, was back promoting those debunked conspiracies on her Monday broadcast.

The incident occurred during Bartiromo’s show Mornings with Maria, broadcast on Fox Business. Bartiromo and her panel were discussing President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon a group of 77 people who tried to help him steal the 2020 election that he lost to former President Joe Biden. The most prominent pardon recipient was disgraced former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, along with right-wing lawyer John Eastman.

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Conservative columnist Liz Peek said she supported the pardons (which are symbolic because no federal charges are pending) but that Giuliani and company were “wrong” in attempting to subvert the election.

“Well, we don’t know if they were wrong, by the way, with all of those mail-in ballots. There is more investigation to be done here and I suspect President Trump has his DOJ doing it,” Bartiromo responded.

The right’s conspiracies about mail-in ballots have been endlessly promoted from Trump on down and have been discredited and debunked. Conservatives have sought to cast doubt on ballots delivered via mail in elections where they lose but have not voiced similar concerns in elections they win.

Following Trump’s loss to Biden, Bartiromo took the lead on Fox’s airwaves in promoting baseless conspiracy theories arguing that Trump had actually won the election. Many of her statements helped form the basis of Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox, pushing back on claims from Bartiromo and others that the voting services company had helped Biden steal the election.Internal communications at Fox disclosed during the suit showed that Fox staffers knew that Bartiromo’s claims were false. One message from “Special Report” anchor Bret Baier admitted that allegations Bartiromo pushed out to her social media accounts were “crap.” Internal messages also showed that Fox hosts were aware that promoting these conspiracies increased their ratings with conservative viewers.

Ultimately Fox paid out a $787 million settlement to Dominion.

Bartiromo’s decision to rehash the conspiracies that caused so much damage to Fox’s bottom line makes it clear that the network cares more about pushing out right-wing lies than anything else, even the bottom line.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos