Fox News staff feared Ailes was monitoring them: report

Multiple Fox News employees feared former Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes was spying on them, according to a new report.

Five current and former staff members believe Ailes monitored the channel’s hosts, media personalities and producers, CNN Money said Monday.

{mosads}“We all believe our phones are tapped and that we are monitored,” one Fox News personality said, echoing the concerns of others who declined to be quoted.

“People definitely felt that the clicks on the line were coming from the inside,” said another staffer of concerns over surveillance.

CNN Money reporter Dylan Byers said Monday that none of his sources had tangible evidence their email or phone communications were monitored. Byers said the majority of his Fox News contacts described a company-wide dread that they were being surveilled.

He added the majority of his sources prefer in-person correspondences or using private email accounts and phone lines for speaking with him.

Reports emerged Sunday that Ailes used parts of the Fox News budget for funding negative campaigns against his enemies.

Ailes reportedly hired consultants, political operatives and private detectives using the money in question. They would purportedly collect sensitive information about Ailes’s opponents and then report it back to the then-Fox News chairman.

Ailes resigned last month amid multiple allegations of sexual harassment against him from the network’s female stars.

Rupert Murdoch, executive chairman of 21st Century Fox, announced on July 21 that he would take over both of Ailes’s roles at Fox News.

“Roger Ailes has made a remarkable contribution to our company and our country,” he said in a statement. “Roger shared my vision of a great and independent television organization and executed it brilliantly over 20 great years.”

Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson accused Ailes of sexual harassment in a lawsuit filed in early July.

Other women at the network have since emerged with harassment allegations against Ailes, including network star Megyn Kelly.