Fox sends Tucker Carlson a letter to stop running Twitter serials

FOX News has reportedly sent its former star host Tucker Carlson a “cease and desist” letter for creating a competing Twitter series, the latest step in a potential legal confrontation.

Carlson was suddenly evicted from his network show on April 23, with no official reason why the company parted ways with their most-watched anchor.

In the aftermath, the newscaster announced he would be starting his own show on Twitter, releasing its first two episodes last week – with a total of 169 million views.

But FOX continued to pay Carlson and maintains a contract that requires him to keep the content exclusive to the network until December 31, 2024.

The network sent an official correspondence to Carlson’s legal team last week claiming the newscaster had breached his contract and threatened to sue.

The network has now escalated that threat, Axios notice, by sending a cancellation letter.

However, Carlson’s lawyers argued that any legal action by FOX would be a direct violation of their client’s First Amendment rights, as the newscaster was reportedly seeking a way out of a $20 million-a-year contract with Company.

In a statement to Axios, Carlson’s attorney, Harmeet Dhillon said, “FOX News continues to disregard the best interests of its viewers, not to mention its shareholder obligations.

FOX doubles down on the most catastrophic programming decision in cable news industry history and is now demanding that Tucker Carlson remain silent until after the 2024 election.

“Tucker will not be silenced by anyone… He is and will continue to be an exceptionally important voice on matters of public concern in our country.”

After news of the strike letter came out, she also wrote on Twitter: “My friend and client [Tucker Carlson] will not be silenced — by the far left or by FOX News.”

She went on to slam the network, asking, “For all members of Congress, culture warriors,” influencers, GOP officials – do you really want to vent your opinion on a network that spit on its viewers, leaks [opposition] on his own talent, even threatening former talent to speak for free on Twitter?! You have free will!’

She claimed that her representation of Carlson prevented her from appearing on the network.

For all the friends who have asked “Why don’t we see you on FOX anymore?” This is why.

“I am passionately committed to the freedom of speech and the free flow of information necessary for a free society,” Dhillon continued.

“Until FOX stops trying to silence Tucker, it’s not a place for me. And I sympathize with my friends who work at the network, which has clearly succumbed to silence under pressure from a certain corner.

“What you see on FOX today is a censored version of the news,” she claimed. “Keep that in mind when making your viewing and commenting choices.”

Carlson’s lawyers have also argued that the network violated the contract by suddenly canceling his show without notice — and it is therefore void.

In a separate statement last week, Carlson’s other attorney, Bryan Freedman, accused network buyer of engaging in hypocrisy by silencing Carlson, pointing to how the company claims to “self-defend its existence on grounds of freedom of expression’.

“Now they want to take away Tucker Carlson’s right to speak freely because he took to social media to share his thoughts on current events,” Freedman wrote in the letter that Axios viewed.

He reportedly added, “Tonight we were made aware of Mr. Tucker Carlson’s appearance on Twitter in a video that lasted more than 10 minutes.”

The letter quotes Carlson’s contract and continues, “Under the terms of the agreement, Mr. Carlson’s services will be completely exclusive to Fox.”

It added that Carlson’s contract says he is “prohibited from providing services of any kind, whether” over the internet via streaming or similar distribution, or other digital distribution, whether known or in the public domain. future will be envisioned.

DailyMail.com has reached out to FOX News for comment.

But before FOX executives threatened legal action, Carlson’s lawyers themselves sent a letter to Network Brass arguing that the star newscaster should not be bound by the non-compete clause and threatening legal action against the company.

It was sent by Freedman to FOX officials Viet Dinh, the company’s chief legal officer, and Irena Briganti, the company’s head of communications.

It alleged that FOX employees, including “Rupert Murdoch himself,” broke promises to Carlson “deliberately and with reckless disregard for the truth,” Axios reported.

The lawyers reportedly accused FOX executives, presumably Dinh and Murdoch, of making “material statements” to Carlson that were intentionally broken, amounting to fraud.

The letter also claimed that Fox had broken a promise to the network not to leak Carlson’s private messages. And it alleged that FOX had broken promises not to settle with Dominion Voting Systems “in a manner that would indicate misconduct” on Carlson’s part, and reneged on a deal to do nothing in a settlement that damaged the reputation of Carlson would harm.

The letter said, “These actions not only violate the covenant of good faith and fair dealing in the contract, but give rise to claims for breach of contract and willful and negligent misrepresentation.”

Carlson alleges in the letter that Briganti attempted to “undermine, embarrass and disrupt” Carlson’s future business prospects, which he said would constitute another violation of his employment contract.

“Make no mistake, we intend to subpoena Ms. Briganti’s cell phone records and related documents, which show communications with her and all media outlets, including but not limited to The New York Times,” the letter read.

They also indicated that legal action would be taken soon.

Fox News must take immediate steps “to preserve all existing documents and records” relevant to Fox’s relationship with Carlson, including correspondence between top executives and various media outlets.

A spokesperson for Fox News said it is “categorically untrue” that Carlson lost his job as part of the network’s $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems.

Stephen Shackelford, an outside attorney for Dominion, told Axios’ Dan Primack, “Dominion did not insist that they fire Tucker Carlson as part of the settlement.”

Carlson released the first two episodes of his highly anticipated 10-minute Twitter show last week.

The first episode, which appeared next to a “Tucker on Twitter” logo, had reached 199,000 retweets, 657,000 likes and 81 million views, with some saying that by the time they finished watching the number of views had already risen by a million .

By comparison, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Fox News, the highest-watched newscast on cable, averaged 3.1 million viewers per weeknight during the weeks leading up to his shock firing.

Twitter owner Elon Musk was quick to praise the 54-year-old former TV host: “It would be great to have shows from all parts of the political spectrum on this platform!” he wrote while retweeting Carlson’s first episode.

He added that he hadn’t signed a deal with Carlson hours after the fired Fox News host revealed he was relaunching his hit show on Twitter — with the subsequent 10-minute production running on a visibly bare budget.

And when Carlson announced his plans to launch a Twitter show in May, Musk insisted he hadn’t made any business deals with the newscaster.