The technology website Gizmodo has sued the FBI to obtain whatever files the agency may have on former Fox News Channel chief executive Roger Ailes.
The man who helped launch Fox News in 1996 and turned it into a media juggernaut died at 77 on May 18 due to a brain injury he received one week prior. Gizmodo filed a Freedom of Information Act request for FBI records on that day, and it now asserts that the agency “failed to provide or formally deny access to the records within the time period allowed under the federal statute.”
Reporter Dell Cameron issued a statement Tuesday regarding the lawsuit, which was filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
“His achievements will forever be overshadowed by the accusations of sexual harassment, coercion, psychological torture, blackmail, and surveillance of his employees that ultimately led to his downfall,” Mr. Cameron wrote. “Given the seriousness of the allegations raised by more than a half dozen women, he naturally found a home on the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, whom he’d gifted years before with a weekly segment on the Fox and Friends morning show.”
“There will be no justice for Ailes or his accusers. His death saw to that. But we can, perhaps, learn something we didn’t already know about the man who built a media empire before burning himself to the ground, if only the FBI would kindly hand over those records.”
Mr. Ailes offered his resignation in July 2016 as sexual harassment allegations leveled by “The Real Story” host Gretchen Carlson swirled.
Ms. Carlson settled the case for $20 million and a public apology by 21st Century Fox.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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