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Jessica Tarlov's False Claim About Tony Bobulinski Sparks Lawsuit Threat Against Fox News
On Wednesday, Tony Bobulinski testified before Congress in the ongoing impeachment investigation of Joe Biden. His damning testimony so triggered Jessica Tarlov, the liberal co-host on Fox News Channel's The Five, that she sought to undermine it by accusing Bobulinski of having a pro-Trump PAC pay his legal fees.
"Tony Bobulinski's lawyers' fees have been paid by a Trump Super PAC that's as recent as January," she claimed before rehashing a false claim about Donald Trump. "Do you think that a guy who's invested in how much better off he wants the United States to be — and really getting to the bottom of this — would be taking money from the guy who extorted the Ukrainians to get dirt on the Bidens?" she asked.
In a letter PJ Media obtained, Bobulinski's lawyer demanded an on-air retraction and an apology from Tarlov for making a false claim.
"Ms. Tarlov stated that Mr. Bobulinski's legal fees are being paid by a Trump Super PAC. This is unequivocally false and defamatory. Indeed, no Trump Super PAC has ever paid Mr. Bobulinski's legal fees," reads a letter from Jesse R. Binnall to Jeff A. Taylor, the Executive Vice President and General Counsel for the Fox Corporation."In fact, Mr. Bobulinski has paid over $500,000, in legal fees to numerous lawyers in law firms out of his own pocket since 2020. We write to demand the immediate retraction, on air, today, of this maliciously blatant lie."Binnall then threatened a defamation lawsuit against Fox if it did not make an apology or retraction."Let me be perfectly clear."The letter also served as a demand for the identification and preservation of records, including all forms of written, electronic, and recorded information, such as emails, text messages, spreadsheets, photographs, videos, and more, along with any drafts or proposed drafts of correspondence, memoranda, reports, and other materials, as well as any attachments or enclosures.
"We will immediately file a defamation lawsuit against Fox, and Ms. Tarlov, if this lie is not retracted by Ms. Tarlov on air today, March 21, 2024. Consistent with her pattern of previous conduct, Ms. Tarlov's comments were intended to be, and are, extremely damaging, making her immediate retraction of the utmost importance."
"Documents and data of any type, whether hard copy or electronic, draft or final, should not be discarded, destroyed, modified, or altered in any way and should be identified, held and preserved in their current format until litigation, if necessary, is resolved," the letter continues.
"It was a mistake to believe Ms. Tarlov's defamatory comments are without consequence," Binnall concluded. "We will be watching today's show."
The Five airs at 5 p.m. ET on the Fox News Channel.
Bobulinski's testimony caused quite a stir on social media on Wednesday for his fiery demeanor and response to Democrat attacks. After accusing Reps. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) of lying, Raskin interrupted Bobulinski's opening statement.
"Am I supposed to say 'it's my time,' Mr. Raskin?" Bobulinski said, prompting laughter from the gallery.
Update 9:29 p.m.: During Thursday's episode of The Five, Tarlov made the following statement:I would like to clarify a comment I made yesterday during our discussion of Tony Bobulinski's appearance at the congressional hearing. During an exchange with my colleagues about the hearing I said that Mr. Bobulinsk's lawyers' fees have been paid by a Trump super PAC as recently as January. What was actually said during the hearing was that the law firm representing Mr. Bobulinski was paid by a Trump PAC. I have seen no indication of those payments were made in connection with Mr. Bobulinski's legal fees and he denies that they were.Watch her retraction here.
"That the Arab Spring "Awakening" is taking a turn, very different to the excitement and promise with which it was hailed at the outset. Sired from an initial, broad popular impulse, it is becoming increasingly understood, and feared, as a nascent counter-revolutionary "cultural revolution" - a re-culturation of the region in the direction of a prescriptive canon that is emptying out those early high expectations ...Well, that was then. How different the landscape is today: The Muslim Brotherhood largely is a 'broken reed', compared to what it was; Saudi Arabia has effectively 'switched off the lights' on Salafist jihadism, and is focussed more on courting tourism, and the Kingdom now has a peace accord with Iran (brokered by China).
"That popular impulse associated with the 'awakening' has now been subsumed and absorbed into three major political projects associated with this push to reassert [Sunni primacy]: a Muslim Brotherhood project, a Saudi-Qatari-Salafist project, and a [radical jihadi] project.
"No one really knows the nature of the [first project] the Brotherhood project - whether it is that of a sect; or if it is truly mainstream ... What is clear, however, is that the Brotherhood tone everywhere is increasingly one of militant sectarian grievance. The joint Saudi-Salafist project was conceived as a direct counter to the Brotherhood project - and [the third] was the uncompromising Sunni radicalism [Wahhabism], funded and armed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, that aims, not to contain, but rather, to displace traditional Sunnism with the culture of Salafism. i.e. It sought the 'Salifisation' of traditional Sunni Islam.
"All these projects, whilst they may overlap in some parts, are in a fundamental way competitors with each other. And [were] being fired-up in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, north Africa, the Sahel, Nigeria, and the horn of Africa.
[Not surprisingly] ..."Iranians increasingly interpret Saudi Arabia's mood as a hungering for war, and Gulf statements do often have that edge of hysteria and aggression: a recent editorial in the Saudi-owned al-Hayat stated:"The climate in the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] indicates that matters are heading towards a GCC-Iranian-Russian confrontation on Syrian soil, similar to what took place in Afghanistan during the Cold War. To be sure, the decision has been taken to overthrow the Syrian regime, seeing as it is vital to the regional influence and hegemony of the Islamic Republic of Iran".
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