A Fox News producer filed two lawsuits against the conservative media company on Monday, alleging that Fox lawyers used a "coercive and intimidating manner" to persuade her to provide misleading information in Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the network.
Abby Grossberg, a producer who has worked with Tucker Carlson and Maria Bartiromo, claimed in the filings that Fox attorneys tried to turn her and co-host Maria Bartiromo into the network's scapegoats for repeatedly and knowingly spreading misinformation about election manipulation in 2020, The New York Times reported.
Grossberg also argued that efforts to saddle her and Bartiromo with blame were evidence of a misogynistic workplace culture, widespread throughout Fox.
"That's what the culture is there," Grossberg told the Times in an interview on Monday evening. "They don't respect or value women."
The lawsuits, filed in New York and Delaware respectively, contain a number of unsettling claims, including that Fox executives referred to Bartiromo as a "crazy bitch" who was "menopausal," asking Grossberg to remove her from coverage discussions.
When Grossberg began her tenure as a "Tucker Carlson Tonight" producer at the New York office last year, she found that the workspace was plastered with images of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wearing a revealing bathing suit, the suit says.
The filing also alleged that Carlson's staff made inappropriate jokes about Jewish people and used derogatory terms to refer to women. Ahead of an appearance on the show by GOP candidate for Michigan governor, Tudor Dixon, the staffers held a mock debate to determine whether they would prefer to have sex with Dixon or Gretchen Whitmer.
EXCLUSIVE w/@katie_robertson:
— Nick Confessore (@nickconfessore) March 21, 2023
Blown-up pictures of Pelosi in a bathing suit. Debates about which gubernatorial candidate was more “fuckable.” Calling women “cunts.”
In new lawsuits, a Tucker Carlson producer describes an atmosphere of rampant misogyny: https://t.co/rciH6Y9ZS9
Grossberg also said that she was encouraged to scale back the severity of a text conversation between her and David Clark, then the vice president of weekend news, in which Grossberg questioned Clark about a segment with then-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
"There will be no 'fact checking' today," Clark texted.
The latest version of Grossberg's filing states that she believes Clark's statement to mean that no one would confirm the veracity of information shared on Carlson's show.
A pretrial hearing in the ongoing defamation lawsuit is slated for Tuesday.
"FOX News Media engaged an independent outside counsel to immediately investigate the concerns raised by Ms. Grossberg, which were made following a critical performance review," a Fox News spokesperson said in a statement. "Her allegations in connection with the Dominion case are baseless and we will vigorously defend Fox against all of her claims."
Former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman called the allegations in the lawsuit "potentially criminal," adding that the claims "suggest obstruction of justice and subornation of perjury."
