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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

So can we stop pretending that Fox is an independent news outlet now?
Posted by Jill | 6:18 AM
Oh, the Bernie Kerik saga just keeps getting better:

Judith Regan, the former book publisher, says in a lawsuit filed today protesting her dismissal by the News Corporation, the media conglomerate, that a senior executive there encouraged her to lie to federal investigators about her past affair with Bernard B. Kerik after he had been nominated to become homeland security secretary in late 2004.

The lawsuit asserts that the News Corporation executive wanted to protect the presidential aspirations of Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Kerik’s mentor, who had appointed him New York City police commissioner and had recommended him for the federal post.

Ms. Regan makes the charge at the start of a 70-page filing that seeks $100 million in damages for what she says was a campaign to smear and discredit her by her bosses at HarperCollins and its parent company, News Corporation, after her project to publish a book with O.J. Simpson was abandoned amid a storm of protest.

In the civil complaint filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Ms. Regan says the company has long sought to promote Mr. Giuliani’s ambitions. But the lawsuit does not elaborate on that charge, identify the executive who she says pressured her to mislead investigators, or offer details to support her claim.

In fact, the allegation about the executive makes up a small part of a much broader array of claims concerning what she says was her improper removal from a job atop one of the more commericially successful book publishing operations.

A News Corporation spokeswoman who declined to be named said that the company saw no merit in the filing.

Ms. Regan had an affair with Mr. Kerik, who is married, beginning in the spring of 2001, when her imprint, ReganBooks, began work on his memoir, “The Lost Son.” In December 2004, after the relationship had ended and shortly after Mr. Kerik’s homeland security nomination fell apart, newspapers reported that the two had carried on the affair at an apartment near ground zero that had been donated as a haven for rescue and recovery workers.

Mr. Kerik, who said he had withdrawn his nomination because of problems with his hiring of a nanny, was indicted last week on federal tax fraud and other charges.

“Defendants were well aware that Regan had a personal relationship with Kerik,” the complaint says. “In fact, a senior executive in the News Corporation organization told Regan that he believed she had information about Kerik that, if disclosed, would harm Giuliani’s presidential campaign. This executive advised Regan to lie to, and to withhold information from, investigators concerning Kerik.”

One of Ms. Regan’s lawyers, Brian C. Kerr of the firm of Dreier L.L.P., said she had evidence to support her claim that she had been advised to lie to federal investigators who were vetting Mr. Kerik and who might have sought to question her about their romantic involvement. But Mr. Kerr declined to discuss the nature of the evidence.

"We are fully confident that the evidence will show that Judith Regan was the victim of a vicious smear campaign engineered by News Corporation and HarperCollins," Mr. Kerr said.


The Smoking Gun has the filing.

That News Corp. wanted to discredit Judith Regan is hardly something over which to shed tears. When one unsavory party goes after another unsavory party, the Rules of Schadenfreude dictate that all we should do is pop a bag of Orville Redenbacher (or since I'm not crazy about popcorn, rip open a bag of something from Dale and Thomas). But if we're talking about the parent company of Fox News telling Regan to lie to investigators about Bernie Kerik in order to protect Rudy Giuliani's presidential aspirations, suddenly we have a "news" network operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, over what are PUBLIC AIRWAVES, as an advocacy arm for a particular presidential candidate (although unannounced at the time). Imagine the outcry on the right if MSNBC's entire programming strategy was designed to prop up the reputation of Hillary Clinton. (And for all those wingnuts who will find their way here, spare me the talk of "liberal" Keith Olbermann, who's been plenty tough on Hillary. And Chris Matthews' hatred for her borders on the pathological.)

UPDATE: No one delivers more hairball-hawking Rudy Judy Judy goodness than Lower Manhattanite.

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