Fox News has reportedly cut ties with on-air personality Bo Dietl, who had allegedly done private investigative work for ousted chairman Roger Ailes.
According to New York magazine reporter Gabriel Sherman, the former NYPD detective and Arby’s pitchman is no longer a contributor for the cable-news network. Dietl came to renewed national attention this month when Sherman reported that Ailes had used the services of Fox News’s resident “tough cop” to wage covert war against his political and personal enemies. Dietl denied his investigations were ever “nefarious” in nature, and proceeded to tell The Daily Beast how—in light of allegations that tanked Ailes’s career—most sexual-harassment lawsuits are just “political correctness” gone awry.
"My contract ran out in the end of July, and [Fox] hasn’t renewed it yet,” Dietl told The Daily Beast on Thursday afternoon. “I have not been definitely told either way, though I haven’t been getting any calls [to appear on shows lately].”
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Dietl again insisted he never helped Ailes wage covert war against the former Fox News chief’s political and personal enemies, as was reported by Sherman.
“All that black-ops on the 14th floor crap… it’s all bullshit,” Dietl said. (Sherman previously emailed The Daily Beast: “I stand by my reporting.”) The ex-cop blames Sherman for his on-air contributor contract not being renewed yet. Following Ailes’s ouster, certain extreme loyalists to the ex-Fox mastermind have been paying a price internally.
Dietl said he spoke to new Fox News Co-President Bill Shine over the phone last week and assured him that he never served on a secret goon squad for Ailes. “Bo, just sit tight, we’re looking into everything,” Shine told Dietl, per the latter’s recollection.
Dietl is now, apparently, considering legal action against New York magazine and its star reporter. “I’m talking to my attorneys about a defamation suit and a libel suit, [especially] if I don’t go back on Fox News,” he said. “I want a retraction… Lanny Davis, one of my attorneys, told me to ask for a retraction, and said that if they don’t give me one, we could do a suit against New York magazine and Sherman… I guarantee you, I got a really good case. I mean, his source is a liar.”
—Asawin Suebsaeng
