Report: Ailes Bulks-Up With Hulk Attorney

Charles Harder

A lawyer for Roger Ailes, the former chairman of Fox News, has sent a letter to New York magazine suggesting he might take legal action over its reporting about Ailes.

The NY Times reports Lauren Starke, a spokeswoman for the magazine, said that Charles J. Harder, who was Hulk Hogan’s lawyer in his successful lawsuit against Gawker Media, had contacted the magazine by email and asked it to preserve documents related to Mr. Ailes in preparation for a possible defamation claim. Harder sent the email on behalf of Ailes and his wife, Elizabeth, Starke said.

Gabriel Sherman, a reporter for the magazine, has written extensively about Ailes and the sexual harassment allegations by female employees that resulted in his ouster in July as chairman of Fox News. On Friday, New York published a lengthy article by Mr. Sherman about Mr. Ailes and his downfall, and in July Mr. Sherman was the first to report that Rupert Murdoch and his sons, Lachlan and James, had decided to remove Mr. Ailes from his position.

Sherman declined to comment on Harder’s request. The magazine said Mr. Sherman’s work “is and has been carefully reported.”

Harder, a Hollywood lawyer, has become a big name in media circles recently for taking on publications on behalf of well-known clients. In March he won a $140 million judgment in favor of Hulk Hogan, the former professional wrestler whose real name is Terry G. Bollea, in an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against Gawker Media.

Harder is also representing Melania Trump, the wife of the Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, in a libel lawsuit filed last week against the publisher of The Daily Mail.