Lou Dobbs, a Fox Business Network anchor, apologized on Twitter for sharing the phone number and address of Jessica Leeds, one of the women accusing Donald Trump of inappropriate behavior.
Leeds came forward in an Oct. 12 New York Times article, accusing Trump of having “grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hands up her skirt” on flight “more than three decades ago.” Trump’s attorney sent a retraction demand to the Times but the newspaper responded that its article was an “issue of national importance,” that its reporters “diligently worked to confirm the women’s accounts” and that the article was “newsworthy information about a subject of deep public concern.”
“Dobbs linked to a post from a conservative news site that purported to link Leeds to the Clinton Foundation,” Politico reported. “The site published Leeds’ address and phone number — taken from public records — and then claimed, falsely, that her phone number is the same as a phone number for the Clinton Foundation.”
The original tweet sent by Dobbs, screenshotted by Mediaite, read “This is the Dirtiest Campaign in our History: #MAGA #TrumpPence16 #AmericaFirst” with a re-tweet of @MichaelDelauzon’s tweet of an aritlce from 100percentfedup.com. Delauzon’s account posts pro-Trump comments with his Twitter bio linking to the Donald Trump campaign website.
The 100percentfedup.com website features headlines such as “BREAKING: WikiLeaks emails suggest Supreme Court Justice Scalia may have been murdered” and “CNN Host and Crybaby Hillary Surrogate get BRUTAL SLAP DOWN When Dr. Gina Loudon Uses Facts Against Them [VIDEO].”
The article about Jessica Leeds was headlined, “BREAKING: DETAILS EMERGE SHOWING LATEST TRUMP ACCUSER Tied to Clinton Foundation.”
In a tweet Thursday afternoon, Dobbs wrote, “my retweet, my mistake, my apology to Jessica Leeds” with a link to Politico’s article about his sharing of Leeds’ information. His original tweet had more than 800 retweets, according to Politico. Dobbs has 795,000 followers.
iMediaEthics has written to Fox News for comment.