Ed Henry, a former White House Correspondent for Fox News and CNN, has sued CNN and NPR for defamation, alleging that the networks “recklessly” spread false accusations that he sexually harassed a co-worker.
The lawsuit, which was filed July 1, also names NPR journalist David Folkenflik and CNN hosts Brian Stelter and Alisyn Camerota. The lawsuit said that Henry co-hosted “America’s Newsroom” on Fox News until he was “blindsided by false allegations of sexual assault.” Jennifer Eckhart, who worked in a different division of Fox, “had a consensual relationship” with Henry until early 2017 and accused him of rape during the summer of 2020, according to the lawsuit.
Third — and not final — defamation suit filed #happyfourth https://t.co/ds5CxKYfyV
— Ed Henry (@edhenry) July 2, 2021
The suit claimed that Eckhart “has not mustered any corroborating evidence to support the allegation,” “deliberately concealed and misrepresented evidence,” and that “all of the evidence shows that her allegations are false.” Still, Henry was fired from Fox as a result of the allegations on July 1, 2020. (RELATED: Ed Henry Says Documents Richard Grenell Just Delivered To William Barr May Have Adam Schiff ‘Even More Panicked Right Now’)
Folkenflik allegedly published an article on NPR that made false claims against Henry. The NPR writer claimed that Fox executives were warned in 2017 about bringing Henry on as a host, and subsequently promoted the article on Twitter. The lawsuit alleged that Folkenflik has a “longstanding grudge against Fox News,” citing his book about the network as an example.
When Stelter appeared on Camerota’s CNN show July 21 to discuss the allegations against Henry, the lawsuit claimed that he “recklessly republished Mr. Folkenflik’s allegation without confirming its authenticity.” Stelter adopted the allegations in the lawsuit as truth, Henry’s lawsuit alleged, and Camerota asked a series of rhetorical questions that “were intended as statements of fact.”
Henry has filed two other lawsuits, including one against several people on social media who spread the sexual assault allegations against him and one against Fox News and the network’s CEO Suzanne Scott.
“My client, Ed Henry, is a journalist’s journalist who won the top award for excellence in White House coverage twice, so he reluctantly brings this action. But there is no excuse for sloppy, reckless journalism that smears him or anyone else,” Henry’s lawyer, Ty Clevenger, said in a statement. “CNN and NPR will be held accountable for what they’ve done to Ed, and given their animosity toward Fox News, I suspect they will be serving a lot of interesting subpoenas on Fox.”