Ousted Fox News CEO Roger Ailes' legal team is reportedly behind an attack on New York magazine writer Gabe Sherman, whose stories about Ailes' sex harassment scandal led to his resignation — and who's about to drop another bombshell.
Two of Ailes' lawyers contacted the Daily Beast to attack Sherman "in slashing, nasty, and deeply personal terms" — even as Sherman readies another magazine expose on Ailes and his behavior toward women, the Daily Beast reports.
Meanwhile, Ailes' and Fox's legal woes may soon grow as Scott+Scott, a national shareholder litigation firm, announced Tuesday that it is probing "whether Fox's Officers and Directors have breached their fiduciary duties owed to Fox and its shareholders" by not dealing with the widespread sexual harassment claims and not properly disclosing to investors multi-million dollar payouts to victims.
Sherman's stories have included the scoop that Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly revealed during an internal review of fired Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson's sex harassment lawsuit that Kelly also had been a victim.
Some two dozen women have now reportedly accused Ailes and other Fox News executives of sex misconduct.
"Gabe Sherman is a virus, and is too small to exist on his own, and has obviously attached himself to the Ailes family to try to suck the life out of them," New York lawyer Mark Mukasey, the son of former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, tells the Daily Beast.
"Roger is fine and doing well, and is not going to allow a virus like that to poison the atmosphere."
Susan Estrich, a law professor and a partner in a blue-chip Los Angeles law firm — as well as a high-profile feminist and former Democratic operative — also denounced Sherman to the Daily Beast.
"This is Gabe Sherman's last stand, and it falls flat," she tells the outlet in an email in reference to Sherman's report on the latest complaint against Ailes and four other Fox News executives by suspended Fox News personality Andrea Tantaros.
"Gabe Sherman has made clear that nothing will stand in the way of his vendetta against Roger Ailes, and he will use any woman he can find — no matter how clearly and deeply troubled she is — to try to concoct allegations against Mr. Ailes," she writes, according to the Daily Beast.
According to the Daily Beast, Estrich lashed out at both Tantaros and former Fox News guest booker Laurie Luhn, who Sherman reported received $3.15 million in company funds to buy her silence after Ailes sexually abused her for two decades.
"But Gabe is running out of women he can use and abuse," Estrich tells the Daily Beast, "Ultimately, it will be clear that the real enemy of women is Gabe Sherman."
Black-ops tactics and smear campaigns have allegedly been a strategy Ailes employed against his enemies while at Fox News.
CNN media reporter Brian Stelter also recently reported he'd gotten a 400-page opposition research file on Sherman that'd been circulated at Fox News around the time magazine reporter was writing his 2014 takedown of Ailes, "The Loudest Voice in the Room."
Mukasey tells the Daily Beast Sherman's upcoming piece on Ailes doesn't come as a surprise.
"Why wouldn't he?" Mukasey tells the Daily Beast. "He seems to do nothing else. He seems to have a sort of twisted obsession with Roger, and I think when his book failed miserably he saw an opening…to suck Ailes's blood."
The Daily Beast notes the Sherman book spent two weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
"Roger will live to fight another day, and Gabe Sherman will be a mediocre journalist for the rest of his life," Mukasey tells the Daily Beast.
"I think that the world should know that what Gabe Sherman dumped into his blog or New York magazine — nobody reads New York magazine — is a result or a product of a sick personal vendetta. I don't think we can say that too many times."
The publication claims a paid circulation of around 400,000, and had in July 27 million unique visitors to its web site, according to the Daily Beast.
Sherman tells the Daily Beast he doesn't take the attacks "personally."
"I'm going to keep my head down and continue to report," he says.
Ailes, through his lawyers, has denied the sexual harassment allegations.