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Fox News tells Tucker Carlson he violated his contract with new Twitter show

In a statement, Carlson’s lawyer insisted that any legal action by his client’s former employer would infringe on his First Amendment rights.

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Fox News on Wednesday told Tucker Carlson's lawyers that the former star anchor breached his contract with the conservative network when he released the first episode of a new show on Twitter this week, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.

Carlson, a firebrand right-wing media personality known for his conspiratorial rhetoric, parted ways with Fox News in late April, days after the network agreed to pay nearly $800 million to Dominion Voting Systems to avert a high-stakes defamation trial.

In a letter to Carlson's lawyers, Fox News general counsel Bernard Gugar said the broadcaster was "in breach" of his contract, which was signed in November 2019 and amended in February 2021.

In a statement, Carlson's lawyer, Bryan Freedman, insisted that any legal action by his client's former employer would infringe on his First Amendment rights.

"Fox defends its very existence on freedom of speech grounds," Freedman said. "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."

The news was first reported by Axios. NBC News has not seen a copy of the letter, but the source with direct knowledge of the matter confirmed that all the information in the Axios article was accurate.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com here.

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