Leak Claims Trail Bartiromo Exit; Lawyer Denies Firing

Fox News has taken Maria Bartiromo off the air, The New York Times reported Saturday, pulling one of the last hosts whose coverage of Dominion Voting Systems fed the expensive defamation lawsuit against the network. The Times headlined its piece "What Led to Maria Bartiromo's Downfall at Fox News."

What is not settled is why — or whether she was fired at all.

The allegation driving the story is that Bartiromo passed internal Fox guidance to the Trump White House. Raw Story, citing Puck News, reported that the network turned against her after she shared an internal Fox message with Trump adviser Peter Navarro, who then passed it "up the chain" to the White House. Mediaite reported that Puck's Dylan Byers named the key players and laid out how the internal guidance reached the administration. The Daily Mail reported the claim that Bartiromo sent a private "censorship" directive to a top Trump aide who moved it "up the chain," and tied the disclosure to coverage of President Trump's July speech on election fraud. The Independent, describing the same reports, wrote that she was allegedly let go for leaking an internal network directive about election coverage to the administration.

Every one of those is a report of an allegation, sourced to Puck and to unnamed people. None of the sources in this cluster carries an on-the-record statement from Fox News explaining the exit. The Frank has not independently verified the leak claim.

The Denial

Bartiromo's lawyer says the premise is wrong. The Blaze reported that her attorney denies she has been fired and has threatened legal action. The Independent reported the attorney's position that accounts saying she was fired or is "no longer working at Fox" are false.

That is a denial from her counsel. It is not, on its own, a fact about her employment status — and the reports it disputes are themselves unverified. Both sides of this are claims, and The Frank is labeling them as such until someone puts a name on the record.