Fox News says Tucker Carlson breached his contract with Twitter show: Report

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Mr Carlson launched his own Twitter show on Tuesday.

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson launched his own Twitter show, on June 6.

PHOTO: REUTERS

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WASHINGTON – Fox News on Wednesday notified Mr Tucker Carlson’s legal team that the former prime-time host violated his contract with the network when he

launched his own Twitter show

on Tuesday, Axios news website reported.

Mr Carlson released the first episode of his new show on Twitter, weeks

after being taken off the air by Fox

following a damaging defamation lawsuit over

false claims of election fraud

.

Fox News general counsel Bernard Gugar sent a letter to Mr Carlson’s legal team, saying Mr Carlson “is in breach” of his contract agreement after he posted a clip of his new show on Twitter on Tuesday evening, according to Axios, which obtained a copy of the letter.

Mr Carlson’s legal team could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters.

His lawyer told Axios that any legal action by Fox would violate his First Amendment right to free speech guaranteed by the United States Constitution.

“Fox defends its very existence on freedom of speech grounds. Now, they want to take Mr Tucker Carlson’s right to speak freely away from him because he took to social media to share his thoughts on current events,” Mr Carlson’s lawyer, Mr Bryan Freedman, said in a statement cited by Axios.

Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The letter quoted by Axios refers to Mr Carlson’s contract, and said its former prime-time star was “prohibited from rendering services of any type whatsoever, whether ‘over the Internet via streaming or similar distribution, or other digital distribution whether now known or hereafter devised’.“ REUTERS

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