Fox News Investigates Claims Insiders Leaked Trump Questions to Town Hall | Fox News

Fox News has launched an investigation into claims that an insider leaked questions to Donald Trump’s team minutes before a key town hall in Iowa last January.

According to a new book by Politico reporter Alex Isenstadt, Trump’s aides received text messages minutes before the show began with the exact wording of questions and planned follow-ups. The town hall was moderated by network anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum.

If confirmed, the leak covered sensitive topics, including Trump’s business entanglements, his multiple indictments and possible plans for political retaliation.

In a statement, the network said it had “no evidence” of the leak but would investigate any possible breach.

“We take this matter very seriously and plan to investigate if a breach is found to occur within the network,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. A separate source familiar with Fox’s inner workings said that if there had been a leak, “it wouldn’t have come from Bret (Baier) or Martha (MacCallum) or the upper editorial levels of the network.”

Isenstadt’s book “Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power” is based on more than 300 interviews and internal documents. It also shows that Trump seriously considered selecting Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo as his running mate before choosing JD Vance. According to texts unearthed during the January 6 congressional investigation, Bartiromo had previously briefed Trump’s team on interview questions following the 2020 election.

Trump has not publicly responded to the accusation. His communications director, Steven Cheung, said it was a sign of Trump’s accessibility and claimed it fueled his primary victory.

“President Trump was the most accessible and transparent candidate in American history,” Cheung said.

The alleged incident reflects a pattern of journalistic ethics violations during key political interviews. CNN fired its employee and former interim DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile in 2016 for sharing civic issues with Hillary Clinton’s campaign, while WURD Radio in Pennsylvania cut ties with host Andrea Lawful-Sanders last summer because she was leading a Biden interview with questions from the campaign.

Isenstadt, who spent a lot of time with Trump, including flying on his plane in June 2023, told CNN that multiple direct sources had confirmed the town hall report.

Although he stood behind his reporting and attribution, Fox News joked in its statement that Isenstadt “conveniently refused to release the images for fact-checking.”