PAYOUT — One of the year’s most hotly anticipated trials reached a stunning conclusion before it even began. Poised to face off in the courtroom this afternoon, with jury selection complete, Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News instead reached a settlement. The last-minute agreement makes clear just how sticky a situation Fox was headed for if the trial did occur.

Lawyers for Dominion announced that Fox News (and parent company Fox Corporation) had agreed to settle the case for $787.5 million — less than half of Dominion’s claim for $1.6 billion in damages but nevertheless a historic rebuke for the influential conservative media outlet.

The massive payout reflects the fact that Dominion had put together a strong case that Fox had acted with “actual malice,” a high bar under defamation law that has historically been difficult for plaintiffs suing media outlets to satisfy. Dominion’s considerable success in this case indicates that Fox acutely understood that there was a high risk that the jury would side with Dominion on this crucial legal point. The settlement also spares the network from weeks of embarrassing testimony that would have put the widespread internal dysfunction at Fox News on full public display.

Dominion had alleged that the network defamed the election technology company in the wake of the 2020 election, focusing on a series of segments in which Fox hosts allowed lawyers affiliated with Donald Trump to falsely claim that the company had rigged the election against the former president. After two years of pretrial litigation, the network found itself struggling to defend itself: A recent decision by presiding judge Eric M. Davis substantially bolstered Dominion’s position heading into trial by concluding that the evidence from pretrial discovery had already established that several key issues — including whether the claims at issue were actually false — were indisputable at trial. The ruling was a major win for Dominion and a major loss for Fox, which no doubt helps to explain today’s settlement.

Before the settlement was announced, there were some unexpected antics that appeared to provide even more reason to think that Fox was in for a very rough ride if the case had gone forward. Caley Cronin, a spokesperson for Fox News, was thrown out of the Wilmington, Del. courtroom after she violated a court order that prohibited taking photographs in the courtroom. It was just the latest embarrassing incident in which representatives for the network had antagonized the judge, who had otherwise drawn praise from observers for his steady hand and even temperament presiding over the case.

The trial was expected to focus on whether Fox News or Fox Corporation acted with “actual malice” in disseminating the false claims against Dominion. Under Supreme Court precedent, this would have required Dominion to show that individuals responsible for broadcasting the segments either knew that they were false or acted with “reckless disregard” as to the falsity of the claims.

This has traditionally been a very difficult standard for defamation plaintiffs to satisfy, since First Amendment law generally provides wide latitude to media organizations engaged in traditional newsgathering, but legal analysts broadly agreed that Dominion had put together an unusually compelling case on this point. In particular, the company’s lawyers amassed internal communications among Fox executives, hosts, and employees with editorial responsibilities in which they appeared to acknowledge in real time and to varying degrees that the claims aired against Dominion were false. Those communications involved some of the most prominent people at the network, including Rupert Murdoch himself and primetime hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham. The prospect of these people taking the witness stand and having to explain them away could not have been appealing for Fox.

One reason that Dominion succeeded in getting this far while other defamation plaintiffs have not is that the underlying false claims made against the company were unusually ridiculous — like the assertion that former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez had played a key role in creating the company, or that Dominion had a secret algorithm that allowed it to switch votes from Trump to Joe Biden. The company’s lawyers also appeared to have succeeded in casting a wide net in the course of discovery, which allowed them to obtain the internal communications that became central to the case. Murdoch, for instance, at one point watched the infamous press conference hosted by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell in November 2020 in which they peddled similar falsehoods. The network’s owner wrote, “Really crazy stuff. And damaging.” There were plenty more of these colorful and embarrassing exchanges among the network’s boldface names.

In recent months, Fox had insisted that a victory for Dominion would pose a broader threat to media protections in this country, but it is not clear whether or to what extent this is correct. The reason is that, despite hundreds of pages of pretrial filings, Fox never managed to identify a single instance of legitimate newsgathering that would have been credibly endangered in the future if Dominion prevailed, as the company has now done. And, of course, the backdrop here is that Fox’s business model has for years drawn intense criticism from media analysts who have argued that the network routinely crosses the boundaries of responsible reporting by pandering to its mostly conservative audience and elevating dubious but politically convenient claims.

The settlement appears to have less to do with other media outlets than it does with the particularly outrageous facts and circumstances surrounding the conduct of Fox, its executives, and employees toward Dominion. This was a stunning case of media malpractice, and Fox is now paying for it.

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— Tax refunds more scarce as filing deadline hits: It’s a bad year for people who love tax refunds. Not only are average payments down — by 9.3 percent, through April 7. The share of returns producing refunds continues to fall as well. Just 69 percent of processed returns have sent money back to people, IRS statistics show — the first time that’s ticked below 70 percent at this point in the filing season in at least a decade. Analysts point to a number of reasons for the shrinking payments: The expiration of pandemic-related relief, of course, but other things too, such as bracket creep, where inflation pushes up people’s tax bills.

— Southwest Airlines briefly pauses flights nationwide over computer glitch: Southwest Airlines asked the Federal Aviation Administration to “pause” all of its departures across the country this morning as the airline worked to resolve what the FAA called a “technical glitch” that delayed about 1,700 flights. The 20-minute pause comes less than four months after a holiday meltdown related to Southwest’s internal scheduling technology stranded passengers for days, and just ahead of the opening of what is expected to be a busy summer travel season. While delays are likely to increase throughout the day due to ripple effects from the ground stop, cancellations were minimal.

— Jeff Sessions details high-level deportation discussions: Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions told a federal jury today about high-level meetings in which officials discussed the potential deportation of Guo Wengui, a dissident Chinese businessperson living in the U.S. Sessions took the witness stand in federal court in Washington during the trial of Pras Michel, a prominent hip hop performer who is accused of violating campaign finance laws, laundering money and taking part in an unregistered foreign lobbying scheme.

RUNNING IT BACK — Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is talking to potential donors, thought leaders, staffers, and others to discuss a possible campaign for president in 2024, sources close to Christie told CNN. Christie is in the process of making a decision and has indicated he will make one in the coming weeks. The New Jersey Republican sees himself as the only serious GOP candidate willing to take on Trump. He also sees himself as a candidate who could appeal to enough independents to beat President Joe Biden in the general election, should Biden announce a reelection bid. Christie defended his previous support for the former president, saying the “line was crossed” during the 2020 election when Trump said it was stolen.

LUCKY NUMBER FIVE — Florida Rep. Greg Steube is now the fifth member of the state’s 20-member Republican congressional delegation to endorse former President Donald Trump for 2024, writes POLITICO’s Gary Fineout. Steube’s decision to endorse Monday happened after reports came out that those in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ orbit reached out to GOP members of Congress last week. That outreach came in the wake of rumblings that several were poised to endorse Trump. Steube’s endorsement also comes on the eve of a DeSantis visit to Washington, D.C., where the likely presidential candidate is doing a meet and greet hosted by several Republicans, including two House members who have endorsed him — Chip Roy of Texas and Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

WAGNER WAR CRIMES — Two former commanders of the Russian paramilitary organization known as the Wagner group claim they killed more than 20 Ukrainian children and teens in Bakhmut and the Donetsk region, in video interviews posted by a Russian human rights organization, writes Veronika Melkozerova.

During the hour-long video, ex-Wagner commanders Azmat Uldarov and Alexey Savichev recount details of various killings, including using explosives to blow up pits with more than 50 wounded prisoners and killing their own compatriots who refused to continue with the invasion. These incidents, which apparently took place in Soledar in the Donetsk region and Bakhmut in February this year, have not yet been independently verified.

In the video, the former Wagner pair also told Vladimir Osechkin — head of Gulagu.net, the Russian human rights group that published the video, currently operating in exile in France — how the group killed dozens of civilians during the clearing of residential buildings in Bakhmut and Soledar.

The two ex-commanders of the “PMC Wagner” division said that Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief financier of the mercenaries, personally gave orders for shootings and killings, as well as approving the cruel methods that Osechkin likened to terrorism in a Facebook post.

Osechkin said the two fighters, both in Russia, had spoken to him over the course of a week in video calls. Osechkin published supporting documents and photos as proof that both apparently indeed spent up to six months fighting in Ukraine, returning home to Russia with medals and money.

“I killed children with [my own] hands,” Uldarov said in the video. “As we entered Soledar and Bakhmut, we got the order to destroy everyone: men, women, children, elderly. She was screaming, a little girl, don’t know if she was 5 or 6. And I shot her. A controlled shot [in the head].”

GOOP ON THE OCEAN — Gwyneth Paltrow’s company Goop has attracted all kinds of press attention over the years: for growing exponentially, but also for selling products disguised as promoting women’s health but based in pseudoscience. It’s a claim that’s difficult to refute but also difficult to prove, as the “modern lifestyle brand” often deals with intersections of physical and mental health. More than anything, Goop has become an example of the promulgation of “wellness” as an idea that can be monetized. Untangling this concept, as well as broader ideas about the writing that’s been done on it, Lauren Oyler traveled on a Goop-sponsored cruise for Harpers, and came back with part-personal essay, part-sharp look at Goop the company and part-consideration of the cruise industry.

BABY BREACH — The White House gates apparently can’t stop all intruders from breaching the premises, writes Matt Berg.

A toddler squeezed through the metal barricade this morning but was caught by Secret Service officers on the North Lawn before he crawled too close to the executive mansion, a spokesperson confirmed in a statement to POLITICO.

“The Secret Service Uniformed Division today encountered a curious young visitor along the White House north fence line who briefly entered White House grounds,” Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said. “The White House security systems instantly triggered Secret Service officers and the toddler and parents were quickly reunited.”

Though short-lived, the toddler’s escapade may be historic: It’s possibly the first successful breach of the White House barrier since the fence’s height was doubled to 13 feet four years ago due to several intrusions. The new fence did, however, come with gaps an inch wider, totaling 5.5 inches.