One of Fox News' few liberal voices was compelled to issue a retraction following erroneous comments about Biden impeachment witness Tony Bobulinski.
But Fox will not cede any more ground to Bobulinski or his attorney.
On Friday, the conservative media giant dismissed Bobulinski's continuing threats following his high-profile testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. A former business associate of Hunter Biden, Bobulinski testified against the Bidens.
Controversy erupted after Jessica Tarlov, a co-host of “The Five” made a statement about Bobulinski on Wednesday that his lawyer demand she retract.
Tarlov issued an on-air clarification the following day:
I would like to clarify a comment I made yesterday during our discussion of Tony Bobulinski's appearance at the congressional hearing. During an exchange with my colleagues about the hearing I said that Mr. Bobulinski's lawyers' fees have been paid by a Trump super PAC as recent as January.
What was actually said during the hearing was that the law firm representing Mr. Bobulinski was paid by a Trump PAC. I have seen no indication those payments were made in connection with Mr. Bobulinski's legal fees and he denies that they were.
But that wasn't good enough, as Mediaite's Aidan McLaughlin explains:
Bobulinski was apparently unsatisfied with the clarification. In a caps-laden letter sent on Friday, his lawyer demanded a “complete retraction and apology” at the start of Friday's edition of The Five, and also that the show air a photo of Bobulinski being sworn in before Congress. The lawyer wrote (emphasis not ours):
To be clear, we demand a complete retraction and apology by Ms. Tarlov AT THE TOP OF TODAY'S SHOW while showing this photograph in which Ms. Tarlov clearly states that she explicitly “apologizes to Tony Bobulinski and Stefan Passantino for making a false claim on the air which harmed their reputations.” Ms. Tarlov must further state, “To be clear, it appears that Mr. Bobulinski has always paid all of his legal bills and there is no evidence that Mr. Passantino or his law firm accepted money from anyone other than Mr. Bobulinski for his representation.” These statements must be made without the petulant innuendo or further attempted mental gymnastics as we saw from her yesterday. Absent such statements, both he and Mr. Passantino will continue to be harmed.
Tarlov did not issue a retraction at the top of Friday's show. In fact, Fox News responded to the letter with a scathing missive, obtained by Mediaite, that roundly dismissed the demand from Bobulinski's lawyer:
I am responding to your letter of March 22, 2024, to Jeff Taylor concerning the correction that Jessica Tarlov made on “The Five” on March 21, 2024. Her correction was accurate, and we will not be issuing any further correction.
It continued in meticulous, chronological order: “On March 21, Mr. Binnal of your firm wrote to Mr. Taylor to complain that on March 20 Ms. Tarlov had said on “The Five” that Mr. Bobulinski's legal fees had been paid as recently as January 2024 by a Trump PAC and that this statement was not true.” After Binnal's letter to Fox Corporation, Fox News' parent company was received “Ms. Tarlov corrected her statement” the next day on air: “She explained: ‘What was actually said at the hearing was that the law firm representing Mr. Bobulinski was paid by a Trump PAC.'”
“That statement was an entirely accurate report on the congressional proceedings.” The painstaking response continued. “At the hearing in question, Representative Crockett stated that the Save America PAC had paid the law firm (Elections LLC), and she introduced a document into the record that she claimed showed such a payment. Publicly available FEC filings also show payments from the Save America PAC to Elections LLC.”
“Your suggestion that Ms. Tarlov's statement somehow ‘left the impression that it was a matter of fact . . . that Mr. Bobulinski's legal fees were being paid by a Trump PAC,' March 22 Letter at 2, simply ignores what Ms. Tarlov said,” the Fox representative added. Referencing Tarlov's statement, the network's rebuttal emphasized that: “She made clear that she had ‘no indication' that there was any such connection between a Trump PAC and Mr. Bobulinski's fees. And she also repeated your client's denial that any Trump PAC had paid his fees.”
The letter ended by unequivocally stating that no additional corrections would be made.
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