Fox News has sent a cease-and-desist letter to former anchor Tucker Carlson, alleging that the conservative talk show host violated his contract launching a new show on Twitter, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Carlson and Fox News “mutually agreed” to part ways back in late April, days after the network agreed to pay almost $800 million to Dominion Voting Systems to avoid a high-profile trial.
“Fox News continues to ignore the interests of its viewers, not to mention its shareholder obligations,” Harmeet Dhillon, Carlson’s lawyer, said in a statement. “Doubling down on the most catastrophic programming decision in the history of the cable news industry, Fox is now demanding that Tucker Carlson be silent until after the 2024 election.
“Tucker will not be silenced by anyone,” she added.
The news of the cease-and-desist letter was first reported by Axios.
Carlson’s new show debuted June 6, posting a 10-minute video on his Twitter profile, where he claimed without evidence that Ukraine organized an attack on a large dam in Russian-occupied territory and used antisemitic words to describe Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Carlson will address the federal indictment of former President Donald Trump in Tuesday’s episode of his show, the same day that the former president is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court in Miami.
Last week, Fox News general counsel Bernard Gugar said Carlson was “in breach” of his contract with the network, which was signed in November 2019, and cannot seek another news network to work for until 2025.
“Fox defends its very existence on freedom of speech grounds,” Carlson’s other attorney Bryan Freedman said. “Now they want to take Tucker Carlson’s right to speak freely away from him because he took to social media to share his thoughts on current events.”
