(Bloomberg) -- Fox News fired a producer who claimed she’d been coerced to give false deposition testimony in the $1.6 billion defamation suit by Dominion Voting Systems over the network’s broadcasting of 2020 election-fraud claims.
Abby Grossberg, who worked with Tucker Carlson and Maria Bartiromo, said Monday she’d been terminated by Fox in an amended version of a suit she filed last week in Delaware.
In addition to her employment status, Grossberg also said she was revising some of the answers she gave in her deposition due to “impermissible coaching and coercion by Fox attorneys.” She also asserted that some Fox producers are “activists, not journalists.”
Fox News said in a statement that Grossberg was fired because she ignored warnings to avoid including privileged information in her lawsuit.
“Like most organizations, Fox News Media’s attorneys engage in privileged communications with our employees as necessary to provide legal advice,” the network said. “Last week, our attorneys advised Ms. Grossberg that, while she was free to file whatever legal claims she wished, she was in possession of our privileged information and was not authorized to disclose it publicly.”
Grossberg is suing Fox for defamation and fraudulent inducement in Delaware. She claims Fox’s lawyers had told her she needed to say “I don’t recall” in response to some questions rather than risk becoming Dominion’s “star witness.”
She’s also suing the network for sex discrimination in New York, claiming it was misogynistic work environment at Fox. Grossberg accused Fox of trying to cast blame on her and Bartiromo for the Dominion claims while protecting Carlson and male senior executives.
The spat between Fox News and Grossberg emerged as lawyers for the network and Dominion prepare for a trial in Delaware state court that’s set to begin April 17. The depositions of numerous Fox News personalities and Fox Corp. executives have been submitted as evidence by both sides.
A hearing to determine which witnesses can and cannot be called to testify in person is set for tomorrow.
Dominion sued after Fox’s on-air personalties and guests, including former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell and longtime Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, falsely claimed that Dominion’s voting machines had been rigged to flip millions of votes away from Trump. The bogus conspiracy theory is still being touted by Trump as he seeks a return to the White House in 2024.
A representative of Dominion declined to comment.
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