Former Fox News reporter Diana Falzone wants a pass from ex-boss Rupert Murdoch to speak out about her supposedly-spiked 2016 reporting on President Donald Trump's hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
"The public has the right to know the truth," said her attorney, Nancy Erika Smith, on Saturday after ex-Fox News editor Ken LaCorte and Fox News host Howard Kurtz made "false and defamatory statements" about Falzone's proposed story just before President Donald Trump's election.
Falzone signed a non-disclosure agreement after a 2018 lawsuit settlement with Fox _ a deal that blocks her from speaking about, among other things, her reporting on the Trump-Daniels sex scandal.
A story in The New Yorker reported that Falzone confirmed the payoffs from then GOP candidate Trump to silence Daniels about their affair in the weeks before Election Day. The story was later broken by The Wall Street Journal, and confirmed by Trump fixer turned informer Michael Cohen.
According to the story, LaCorte shot down Falzone's reporting by invoking Murdoch's name.
"Good reporting, kiddo," he reportedly said. "But Rupert wants Donald Trump to win. So just let it go."
The statement from attorney Smith specifically called on Murdoch to release Falzone from the NDA.
LaCorte has denied making the comment, and wrote a Friday story on Mediaite describing Falzone's reporting as a nine-paragraph piece that lacked corroboration or any mention of hush money contracts.
Falzone, in a Vanity Fair piece about NDAs, made her position clear about the deals without mentioning her own situation.
"Silence is not golden," she wrote last week. "Silence is stifling. Forced silence is demeaning."
Fox News did not immediately respond to request for comment.
