All this week, the leftist Mainstream Media has flopped around like a beached fish, trying to concoct a reason why Fox News fired its most popular commentator, Tucker Carlson.
It was the $787.5 million paid to Dominion Voting Systems to settle its defamation claim.
It was Carlson’s coverage of the mostly peaceful protest at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
It was Carlson’s pro-prayer speech at the Heritage Foundation’s 50th Anniversary shindig.
And, last, it was the sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit filed by Carlson’s former booker, Abby Grossberg.
On that last, a not insignificant fact has emerged that the New York Times and other leftist bullhorns omitted: Grossberg never met Carlson.
Confirmed by Lawyers
Spectator reporter Amber Athey confirmed a report from former Fox Newser Greg Price.
“A source who is a former Fox News employee tells me Abby Grossberg never once met Tucker Carlson during her time as his booker,” Price tweeted after Carlson was booted:
She worked out of the Fox NYC office while Tucker spent all his time in his home studios in Maine and Florida.
That mysteriously goes unmentioned in this New York Times story.
It mysteriously goes unmentioned by CNN and the Los Angeles Times, as well.
“Like many on the [Tucker Carlson Tonight] staff, Abby never met Tucker Carlson in person because he taped the show from his personal studios in Maine and Florida, and he did not visit Fox’s NY HQ during her time there,” said Kimberly Catala, one of Grossberg’s army of attorneys:
Grossberg’s lawyers said she was in contact with Carlson on a daily basis over text and email and that the two also spoke on the phone until she left the network. They suggested that since Carlson was not present in the New York office, the “sexist” environment was perpetrated at his direction by other employees who served as his “eyes” and “ears.”
“Since Tucker did not come to the Fox office, he relied on Justin Wells, his executive producer, and others like Alexander McCaskill, senior producer, who were present in the office every day to be his eyes, ears and mouthpiece, and to convey his ‘tone,’ as they threateningly reminded Ms. Grossberg,” Catala said.
The Spectator also received a bizarre email from another of Grossberg’s attorneys that repeated her allegations. The attorney demanded that it be reproduced in full.
The Lawsuit
Despite Grossberg having never laid eyes on Carlson, her lawsuit describes a hostile work environment “rife with blatant and frequent acts of discrimination with respect to the terms and conditions of her employment in comparison to male employees.”
Grossberg claims that she was hurt “economically, emotionally, and reputationally.”
Among the many evils that Fox, Carlson, and others perpetrated were using locker-room language, particularly about women, along with “systematic chauvinism.” A senior producer, the lawsuit alleges, called Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo host “crazy,” “menopausal,” and “hysterical.”
Whether Bartiromo is any of those things we are not given to know. Grossberg’s lawsuit certainly doesn’t say. It does say she was overworked, and that she didn’t like Carlson’s politics, either. Thus does it cite Carlson’s dim view of women in the military:
So we’ve got new hairstyles and maternity flight suits — pregnant women are going to fight our wars.… It’s a mockery of the U.S. military.
Why Carlson’s views on women in the military, which are shared by millions of Americans, not least the men who must serve with them, is unclear.
Blackmail Material
Meanwhile, Rolling Stone disclosed another little-noticed wrinkle in the Fox vs. Carlson fight. The website alleges that a Fox News mouthpiece has a file on Carlson that is loaded with derogatory information ready to be released should he step out of line.
“When Fox announced Carlson’s departure on Monday, the network presented the separation as amicable,” the website reported:
But according to one former on-air Fox personality, the anchor and some of the channel’s top executives are parting ways on “the worst” and “messiest possible terms.” Indeed, in private communications released last month as part of the Dominion-Fox lawsuit, the now-fired Fox host gossiped that one such exec “hates us,” claiming she was covertly working against him and other hosts.…
Eight people familiar with the situation tell Rolling Stone that Fox News and its communications department — long led by the notoriously aggressive Irena Briganti — has assembled damaging information about Carlson. One source with knowledge calls it an “oppo file.” Two sources add that Fox is prepared to disclose some of its contents if execs suspect that Carlson is coming after the network.
Fox News, of course, denied that any such file exists.
Since his departure, Carlson has said nothing about it. In a video he posted to Twitter, Carlson didn’t mention Fox or his sudden exit, and instead reprised one of the key points of his speech at the Heritage bash. Political debate is “stupid” and pointless because it is irrational.
When “you take a little time off,” he said, you notice “how unbelievably stupid most of the debates you see on television are. They’re completely irrelevant. They mean nothing.” And so they’ll be forgotten within five years, he continued. “Trust me as someone who’s participated.”
