Nancy Pelosi was pictured wearing a plunging swimsuit on the walls of the office for Tucker Carlson's show on Fox News, a new lawsuit by one of the network's employees has claimed, reopening questions about a culture of misogyny at the news organization.
In two lawsuits filed on Monday in New York and Delaware, seen by the New York Times, Abby Grossberg, a producer who worked for both Carlson and host Maria Bartiromo, said she saw the pictures of the then-House speaker on her first day working in Carlson's Manhattan workspace.
The legal challenges reportedly accuse lawyers for Fox of coercing Grossberg into giving misleading testimony as part of its ongoing defamation battle with Dominion, an electronic voting company, over the network's airing of allegations of election fraud in the 2020 vote.
Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corporation are being sued for more than $1.6 billion over claims the news network amplified false claims. Smartmatic, another electronic voting company, is also suing Fox for $2.7 billion.
Grossberg was named in court documents submitted by Dominion in Delaware on February 16. According to the New York Times, her new lawsuits say that she and Bartiromo were overworked and understaffed, and that any efforts to blame the two were based in sexism at the network.
The reported allegations included Bartiromo being called a "crazy b****" and "menopausal" by superiors, Carlson's staff making jokes about Jewish people and holding a mock debate discussing which of two female gubernatorial candidates they would rather have sex with.
In an interview on Monday, Grossberg told the newspaper: "That's what the culture is there. They don't respect or value women."
A Fox News spokesperson told Newsweek her allegations "in connection with the Dominion case are baseless and we will vigorously defend Fox against all of her claims."
The same day, Fox filed a countersuit to Grossberg's in the Supreme Court of New York, an emergency application for a temporary restraining order and injunction to prevent her "from disclosing Fox News' privileged information," saying the corporation risked suffering "immediate irreparable harm."
It said Fox lawyers "discussed a variety of topics relating to case strategy" ahead of her deposition in the Dominion case, and that she had been promoted shortly before into a role Grossberg "quickly proved unable to perform adequately." A judge has yet to rule on the lawsuit.
In deposition documents, Grossberg is quoted as saying she did not think it important to correct false claims that were aired, and with reference to election fraud claims texted Bartiromo: "To be honest, our audience doesn't want to hear about a peaceful transition... They still have hope."
Parisis Filippatos, Grossberg's attorney, described the suit as a "frivolous attempt to silence" his client, telling the Daily Beast: "We are happy that the full story regarding her case will now be heard by three separate courts in each of which we are confident she will receive the justice she deserves."
He told the New York Times that Fox had placed Grossberg on forced administrative leave on Monday.
In a statement, a Fox spokesperson said the company "engaged an independent outside counsel to immediately investigate the concerns raised by Ms Grossberg, which were made following a critical performance review."
The statement added that Grossberg "threatened to disclose Fox's attorney-client privileged information and we filed a temporary restraining order to protect our rights."
Allegations of sexism and misogyny at Fox News are not new, and were the subject of the 2019 film Bombshell, which dramatized claims made by some of the network's top female anchors of sexual harassment by its then-CEO Roger Ailes.
In 2016, Gretchen Carlson, a former Fox News host, accused the Fox CEO of sexual harassment, and was joined by several others including Megyn Kelly and Andrea Tantaros. Ailes resigned in July that year.
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About the writer
Aleks Phillips is a Newsweek U.S. News Reporter based in London. His focus is on U.S. politics and the environment. ... Read more
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