The former Tucker Carlson producer who sued Fox News last week alleging it was pressured into giving misleading testimony about the network’s coverage of alleged voter fraud has filed new complaints about the coercive training of Fox lawyers, the bias and unprofessional behavior of staff members and network retaliation.
In documents filed Monday morning, Abby Grossberg seeks to correct a Sept. 14 statement she gave about the network’s coverage of Dominion Voting Systems, which she says was tainted by pressure from Fox lawyers. Grossberg alleges that she was not able to see a transcript of her testimony before it became part of the record, despite the fact that she requested the opportunity to see it six times, while her male colleagues were allowed to see their transcripts. She says she was able to review and correct it only more than five months later, after retaining her own lawyers.
“Based on what I understood and learned from the prep sessions I had with the Fox legal team, which were coercive and intimidating,” Grossberg said in an unedited errata filed in Delaware, “I felt I had to do everything I could. to avoid becoming Dominion’s ‘star witness’ or else I would seriously jeopardize my career at Fox News and be subject to worse terms and conditions of employment than male employees as I understood them.”
The amended complaints Grossberg filed Monday morning in Delaware and New York add claims against Fox News for retaliation and discrimination and provide more details about the alleged actions of Fox’s attorneys during the preparation of the plea. Grossberg says in the amended New York lawsuit that lawyers wanted her to downplay the importance of ratings in decision-making at Fox and that she felt “pressured to respond with a generic ‘I don’t remember’ every chance she got, even if she did, in fact, have a memory, though perhaps not perfect.
The amended New York complaint also alleges that Fox’s lawyers repeatedly told Grossberg, «who really can/remember anything?» thereby «fraudulently inducing her to deny facts she knew existed.» She says the lawyers also hinted that she shouldn’t reveal how she failed to read and react to all the email warnings Dominion had sent to Fox News due to lack of staff and resources. she fell through the cracks” on Fox News.
Grossberg sued Fox News in Delaware and New York on March 20. Fox fired her on Friday, alleging that she acted «contrary to the Company’s express instructions» by disclosing allegedly inside information in Dominion’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox.
Grossberg alleges in the amended complaints that his firing was in retaliation for taking legal action.
In a statement to NBC News, Grossberg’s attorneys Parisis Filippatos and Tanvir Rahman called her firing Friday afternoon the «latest thinly veiled act of retaliation» and stressed that Grossberg, Carlson’s former senior producer and head of contracting, was asserting her civil rights in her lawsuits, which allege that lawyers for the network she was trained and coerced into giving misleading testimony and conspired to frame her for Fox’s coverage of conspiracy theories promoted by former President Donald Trump and his allies.
“We will go after Fox News and protect Ms. Grossberg in any and all courts necessary until her truth prevails and justice is served,” her lawyers said.
In a statement, a Fox News spokesperson said: «Like most organizations, Fox News Media attorneys maintain privileged communications with our employees as needed to provide legal advice. Last week, our attorneys informed Ms. Grossberg that while she was free to bring whatever legal claims she wished, she was in possession of our proprietary information and was not authorized to release it publicly, we were clear that if she violated our instructions, Fox would take appropriate action, including termination. Ms. Grossberg ignored these communications and chose to file her complaint without taking any action to protect the portions that contain proprietary information of Fox. We will continue to vigorously defend Fox against Ms. Grossberg’s meritless legal claims, which They are plagued with false accusations against Fox and our employees.»
Grossberg’s new Delaware filings include an errata sheet on his original return, that is, his corrections, amendments, and reasons for amending his original return. On Monday, his lawyers also filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and a complaint with the New York City Human Rights Commission about Fox’s possible failure to comply with the commission’s previous mandates. from the city.
In her lawsuits, Grossberg alleged that Fox wanted her and Maria Bartiromo, the Fox Business host she worked for before Carlson, to take the blame for the network’s coverage of Dominion and unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in the election. of 2020. He also made a series of complaints about crude, sexist and misogynistic behavior on the network. In her new introduction, she says a male producer saw a video of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, doing CrossFit exercises and called her a «eunuch.»
Grossberg said in his new documents that during his original statement “I did not understand at the time, since Fox had not informed me, that the ‘I don’t remember’ statement is potentially perjurious. … I also understood and learned from my statement preparation sessions with the Fox legal team that I needed to keep my answers artificially general and if they were questions about details, try to dodge the question by saying ‘I don’t remember.’ ”
In the amended New York complaint, Grossberg says that during plea preparation sessions, Fox’s lawyers showed him two text message exchanges from November 8 and 9, 2020, about «a particularly troubling topic.» [on-air] segment in which Rudy Giuliani made unsubstantiated allegations about widespread voter fraud.» She says the messages showed it had been «prerecorded» and therefore could have been edited or prevented from airing, but that David Clark, then the network’s senior vice president of weekend news, had decided not to keep it. off air.
To cover up the omission, Grossberg says, Fox lawyers coached her into saying the segment was «live to record» to imply that it could not have been edited between recording and broadcast. “However, the Fox News attorneys knew full well,” the complaint states, that what they were “trying to intimidate Ms. Grossberg into weaving into her testimony was materially misleading.”
The errata sheet filed Monday as exhibits with Delaware’s amended complaint repeats Grossberg’s allegation that Fox News lawyers canceled his opening statement late the night before it was to take place. She states in the new filing that «I have good reason to believe it was because Fox wanted to once again prepare me and train me to make statements that would make me look bad and incompetent, and therefore ruin my career, while distancing himself from others.» . parent company from at least some substantial liability compensation because Fox’s lawyers were trying to scapegoat me as inexplicably incompetent.»
Dominion’s lawyers asked him during the deposition if he trusted the Fox producers he worked with. She replied yes, but she amended it to say she didn’t trust all producers because «they’re activists, not journalists and they push their political agenda on programming,» and she says she caught someone she worked with plagiarizing.
Grossberg said in the errata sheet that Dominion-related reporting did not receive the same editorial oversight, including editing of questionable content, as other stories, stating that «Dominion-related reporting…was able to receive significant airplay without any evidence to implicate them in any way.»
A Fox spokesperson said: «Their allegations in connection with the Dominion case are baseless and we will vigorously defend Fox against all of their claims.»