Fox News Staff Had ‘Widespread Fear’ Roger Ailes Monitored Calls, Emails

“We all believe our phones are tapped and that we are monitored,” Fox News personality says

roger ailes
Fox News

Fox News Channel staff feared that ex-CEO Roger Ailes and other execs were monitoring their conversations, according to CNN.

“There was a widespread fear within the organization,” CNN‘s Dylan Byers reported on the air Tuesday. “I want to be clear about this, none of the sources we spoke to had hard evidence that their phone had been tapped or their emails were being read.”

Everyone from on-air talent to producers were concerned that they were being spied on, according to Byers. “We all believe our phones are tapped and that we are monitored,” one unnamed Fox News personality told CNN, while another said, “People definitely felt that the clicks on the line were coming from the inside.”

“This goes to the sort of culture of secrecy that Roger Ailes had created at the network over the 20-year period that he was there,” Byers said.

Fox News did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.

Gretchen Carlson’s sexual harassment lawsuit against Ailes has led to a number of allegations against the former Fox News boss. One of the new allegations comes from New York magazine’s Gabe Sherman, who reported Sunday that Ailes hired people “to conduct PR and surveillance campaigns against people he targeted, both inside and outside the company.”

Sherman also wrote that Fox News recently “dismissed five consultants whom Ailes had hired to do work that was more about advancing his own agenda than Fox’s.”

Ailes has continued to deny all sexual accusations against him, but several other women have come forward with similar claims. He stepped down as Fox News boss last month and Rupert Murdoch is running the network until a permanent replacement is named.

21st Century Fox is requesting that Ailes pay for at least part of the impending settlement in Gretchen Carlson’s sexual harassment lawsuit, according to Vanity Fair. Carlson’s suit, filed in July, claims the “Real Story” host refused Ailes’ sexual advances and, “as a direct and proximate result,” her relationship with Fox News was severed nine months later.

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