WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Fox News on Wednesday notified Tucker Carlson’s lawyers that the former prime-time anchor violated his contract with the network when he launched his own Twitter show on Tuesday, Axios reported, citing a copy of a letter obtained by the news website.
Carlson released the first episode of his new show on Twitter on Tuesday, weeks after being taken off the air by the network following a damaging defamation lawsuit over false claims of election fraud.
Carlson’s lawyer told Axios that any legal action by Fox would violate his First Amendment rights. The First Amendment of the U.S. constitution guarantees citizens the right to free speech.
“Fox defends its very existence on freedom of speech grounds. Now they want to take Tucker Carlson’s right to speak freely away from him because he took to social media to share his thoughts on current events,” Carlson’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said in a statement cited by Axios.
Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler and Deepa Babington)
