Former NBC News host Megyn Kelly on Wednesday said NBC aired discredited Brett Kavanaugh accuser Julie Swetnick's allegations against the Supreme Court nominee "with far less trepidation" than it showed with allegations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Kelly appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight to discuss her tenure at NBC News. When asked about the network's coverage of sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh, Kelly said NBC "went to air with that story with far less trepidation than they showed in going to air on the Harvey Weinstein story."
"Let's take Julie Swetnick, who was the completely discredited alleged third accuser against Kavanaugh," Kelly said. "This is the woman whose story had tons of holes in it. There was a date rape and everybody saw it and then nobody saw it and she basically imploded on the air. She was an Avenatti client. Remember her?"
Kelly contrasted Swetnick's story with the evidence supporting accusations against Weinstein. "They had tapes. They had witnesses. They had women on the record, Rose McGowan was just one of them. And there is a question of why, right?" Kelly asked. "Was it political as you suggest here? Was it something else? Was it to protect somebody internally? Someone who wasn't the women of the company, right? Because here's what Ronan [Farrow]'s suggesting, is that they covered up for one sexual predator, Harvey Weinstein, in order to protect another, Matt Lauer."
In early October 2018, NBC News aired an exclusive interview with Swetnick, who was then a client of anti-Trump lawyer Michael Avenatti. Later that month, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) noted that Swetnick contradicted her sworn statement multiple times. NBC also reported it had "found other apparent inconsistencies in a second sworn statement from another woman whose statement Avenatti provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee in a bid to bolster Swetnick's claims."
Journalist Ronan Farrow worked for NBC News until the network attempted to kill his story about Weinstein's sexual misconduct in 2017. Farrow even had a tape of Weinstein admitting he groped model Ambra Gutierrez, but NBC did not go forward with the story. The Weinstein allegations consisted of dozens of women coming forward to accuse Weinstein of sexual harassment and assault, dating back decades.
Farrow alleges in his new book, Catch and Kill, that NBC caved under pressure to bury the story on Weinstein after the producer threatened to expose NBC host Matt Lauer's own history of sexual misdeeds.
Kelly said NBC should get an "outside investigator" if the network has nothing to hide.