Politics

Now Andrea Tantaros Says She Was Taken Off-Air Because She Accused Ailes Of Harassment

There were a lot of rumors and speculation about this, and it appears that it was all true – Andrea Tantaros is revealing that she was sexually harassed by Roger Ailes in addition to all the other women who have come out at Fox News.

Here’s when the news broke on CNN:

From New York Magazine:

Fox News’ senior executives have said they were unaware of sexual-harassment allegations against Roger Ailes before former anchor Gretchen Carlson filed a lawsuit against him in July. But those claims are now being challenged by Fox host Andrea Tantaros, who says that she complained multiple times to senior Fox executives in 2015 about Ailes’s inappropriate sexual behavior toward her. Tantaros says that, after she came forward, she was first demoted and eventually taken off the air in April 2016. Fox continues to pay her.

Through her lawyer, Judd Burstein, Tantaros says that both she and her agent told Fox executive vice-president Bill Shine, senior vice-president Suzanne Scott, and general counsel Dianne Brandi about episodes of Ailes’s alleged harassment. “She made multiple harassment and hostile-workplace complaints,” Burstein says. As far as Tantaros knows, Fox executives never investigated her complaints, Burstein says; instead, they claim, Fox sidelined her. “I believe it’s retaliatory,” says Burstein.

Fox’s attorneys dispute this. The network says Tantaros was suspended with pay because she violated company policy by not allowing Fox to vet her 2016 book, Tied Up in Knots: How Getting What They Wanted Has Made Women Miserable. Fox attorneys told Burstein the network was embarrassed by her book’s cover, which depicts Tantaros bound by ropes.

Wow. It’s looking worse and worse for Fox News. And CNN’s media critic Brian Stelter has also discovered that Ailes was using Fox News accounts to hire private investigators to target his enemies – here’s more about that:

What he points out is that this means the blue chip law firm Fox News hired to look into the accusations didn’t reach out to Tantaros – doesn’t sound like they’re terribly good at their job…

‘We love this story about an undocumented immigrant!’ – Ivanka in 2015