Fox News Parts Ways With John Solomon, Architect of Trump’s Ukraine Conspiracies
The pro-Trump writer became a paid contributor as he was a fixture on Fox’s right-wing opinion programming, despite the network’s research arm warning of his “disinformation.”
Fox Business Network
After a tumultuous year at Fox News that included the network’s own “Brain Room” warning hosts and anchors not to trust his “disinformation,” pro-Trump columnist John Solomon is no longer a paid contributor with the network.
A Fox News spokesperson confirmed to The Daily Beast that Solomon is no longer affiliated with the conservative cable outlet. Solomon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
While Solomon’s hits on Fox News have dried up in recent months—he has not appeared since July—he has remained a regular presence on the Fox Business Network’s stridently pro-Trump shows hosted by Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo. In his recent appearances, he has been identified solely as the editor-in-chief of his right-wing digital outlet Just The News, or as the author of Fallout, his latest book, which was heartily endorsed by President Donald Trump.
The last time he was identified as a Fox contributor on its airwaves was during an Oct. 14 appearance on Bartiromo’s morning FBN show. Solomon’s Twitter account does not list Fox News in his bio.
After a long journalistic career that included stints at The Washington Times, The Washington Post, and The Daily Beast, Solomon came to prominence in the right-wing media ecosystem following Trump’s election.
As the chief creative officer for Circa News, he teamed up with current Fox News contributor Sara Carter on a number of articles that set the table for Trumpworld’s “Spygate” narrative, resulting in his becoming a fixture on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program.
After joining The Hill as executive vice president of digital video in 2017, Solomon’s questionable reporting—which repeatedly pushed narratives that Trump was the victim of a liberal “deep state” plot—caused tension in the newsroom, prompting The Hill to move him to the opinion side in 2018. Despite Solomon’s own employer labeling his work as strictly “opinion,” Hannity would continue to call Solomon an “investigative reporter” during his guest appearances, despite Fox management reportedly telling him to stop.
At the height of the impeachment drama over Trump attempting to coerce Ukraine to investigate his own political opponent, Joe Biden, Fox News officially hired Solomon as an on-air contributor in Oct. 2019. The network’s timing on his hire was especially eyebrow-raising as the journalist had just been repeatedly named in the impeachment whistleblower’s complaint, prompting Solomon’s colleagues to unload on him.
Solomon’s opinion pieces at The Hill, meanwhile, helped fuel Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to dig up dirt on now-President-elect Joe Biden, something that was laid out in full during the impeachment hearings. After it was revealed that Solomon had been in frequent contact with Giuliani and his Ukrainian associates, The Hill’s editor-in-chief Bob Cusack announced that the newspaper was “conducting a meticulous review” of Solomon’s columns on Ukraine.
Solomon would leave The Hill at the end of 2019 in order to start his own conservative media venture, Just The News. In Feb. 2020, The Hill’s internal investigation found that Solomon published misleading columns and the paper shouldn’t have presented them as news articles. It also criticized Fox News for identifying Solomon as an “investigative journalist” at the time.
At the same time, Fox News’ research team compiled a briefing book on Ukraine and impeachment for news broadcasts that warned colleagues that Solomon lacked credibility as he played an “indispensable role” in a Ukrainian “disinformation campaign.”
