Former NBC News producer Rich McHugh said Monday night that the network is being investigated by the civil division of the New York Attorney General’s office.
McHugh made the statement on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” the same day an organizational restructuring cheered by at least one women’s group saw NBC News Group president Andy Lack out at NBCUniversal and NBC News president Noah Oppenheim blocked from succeeding him.
Carlson prompted, “I want to run something by you that I have heard and I honestly don’t know it’s true so I just want to know if you’ve heard this: I have heard that the New York attorney general’s office is investigating NBC on sexual abuse, sexual harassment claims and no one’s been charged but people have come in and been interviewed — NBC News staffers, producers, executives and talent. Have you heard anything about this?”
McHugh responded: “Yes I have, Tucker. That is true. I am aware of it. I’ve been looking into it for a story. It was the New York attorney general’s office’s civil division, so, you know — we’re not sure if it could lead to anything criminal but I do know they’ve been looking into this and interviewing employees over a number of months.”
McHugh has spoken out against his former employer’s practices in the past. He worked on an iteration of Ronan Farrow’s Harvey Weinstein expose and subsequently told the New York Times in August 2019 that people at “the very highest levels of NBC” work to quash the story at the network.
The New York Attorney General’s office declined to comment “at this time”; a rep for NBC did not return a request for comment.
Meanwhile, UltraViolet, a national women’s group, cheered the exit of longtime NBC News Chairman Lack on Monday afternoon as a “positive development” that “suggests NBC is beginning to take issues regarding its workplace culture seriously.”
“After a career of enabling sexual abusers, preying on women in the workplace and silencing stories from survivors, Andy Lack’s name is synonymous with NBCUniversal’s toxic workplace culture. Lack should have been forced to step down after Ronan Farrow’s reporting exposed his role covering up sexual abuse at the network,” UltraViolet co-founder Shaunna Thomas said in a statement, citing previous accusations about Lack’s behavior as chairman of NBC News and MSNBC since 2015. (Lack has denied retaliating against the two women who spoke with Farrow about his behavior.)
Of Lack’s exit, McHugh told Carlson, “One has to assume that they caught wind of this investigation.”
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