New York City mayoral candidate and private investigator Bo Dietl told the Wall Street Journal that former Fox News boss Roger Ailes hired him to look into Gretchen Carlson’s past. Dietl said his services were also retained to discredit the claims of Andrea Mackris, a former producer who sued Bill O’Reilly for harassment in 2004 and ultimately received a $9 million settlement.
In their interview, Dietl told the newspaper that he had an investigator eavesdrop on Mackris’ conversations at an establishment, “in an effort to show she wasn’t under duress from alleged harassment.”
Federal authorities are currently looking into Ailes’ use of Dietl “to probe the backgrounds of people perceived to be a threat to either Mr. Ailes or the channel,” the Journal wrote.
Late last month, the U.S. Justice Department expanded its investigation of Fox News Channel and began looking into “friends” that former network chief Roger Ailes kept on the payroll — like former on-air contributor Dietl, who plans to challenge Bill de Blasio in November.
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