Roger Ailes (courtesy thedailybeast.com)

The left leaning Vanity Fair has posted an article about Roger Ailes’ departure from Fox News Channel. Mr. Ailes left the news network under a cloud, accused of sexually harassing various female employees. When emptying of Ailes’ office, now occupied by interim Fox News CEO Rupert Murdoch, the worker bees discovered a couple of guns.

“The wooden door that famously cordoned his office suite from prying eyes was removed. Within, two handguns were discovered—one a Glock, the other a Smith & Wesson—with ammunition for both.

(“Roger has a permit for those two guns,” Ailes’s attorney, Susan Estrich, told me, adding that her client has a license to carry a handgun in New York, “for his personal protection.” She continued: “Those guns are licensed and appropriate.” Ailes has repeatedly denied all allegations of sexual harassment.)

How Mr. Ailes received a permit for his firearms in New York City — a municipality less inclined to give average folks a gun permit than a winning lottery ticket — is another story. One which involves pulling serious strings. One which we’ll likely never know.

Anyway, for abandoning his firearms, presumably without securing them, Mr. Ailes gets TTAG’s Irresponsible Gun Owner of the Day award. No chance of it sitting next to his TV awards, but a milestone achievement nonetheless.

36 COMMENTS

  1. I am not the biggest fan of Roger Ailes, but he gets a pass from me for this:
    “The wooden door that famously cordoned his office suite from prying eyes was removed.”

    These people removed his door to break into his office, so it was presumably locked, else why remove the door. Now as a fired employee, they may not have let him back in to collect his stuff, so this sounds like they wanted to grind him under their collective heal. Whether he deserved to be canned or not what they did here was manufacture news at his expense.

      • Reportedly, he turned down the 40 mil payoff. Susan Estrich is a killer attorney. I wouldn’t be surprised if the harassment cases fall apart. The fact that there are women contemporary with the one’s making the charges who are defending Ailes is significant. In the TV biz, looks count. It’s a different kind of business.

    • I just sort of wonder if he had a chance to get his stuff out of the office.
      I have worked at places where once ” going in new directions”, you did not have an opportunity to clear out your possessions and they were “collected” for you with about half the items missing.

  2. It is possible (even likely) that they locked him out if his own office unexpectedly when the fired him. Thus, even if they were locked up, he couldn’t retrieve them.

  3. According to the preponderance of the evidence so far, his rifle was not problem, it was his gun….

    • If you consider the preponderance of the evidence then you’re mentally playing with yourself, because, so far, it’s not even anecdotal, and no charges filed. In this sour grapes no $ election season. Heads are gonna roll, those heads are going to be met at the elevator, lobby level, by attorneys with a proposition to “get them their check”. WTFE

      I like a man who can un-ass his office without sweating leaving firearms behind for the POS rabble.

      • Might want to start reading if you think there’s not evidence.

        Especially as much of the silence has been paid for, and many of the accusers have broken their confidentiality agreements.

        • Might have to cite the indictment, or case style or else I’m just going to have to label it (cheaper to pay me to go away) extortion. Happens all day and 2x on Sun.

          There was no bitch until the got let go.

        • Might have to cite the indictment, or case style or else I’m just going to have to label it (cheaper to pay me to go away) extortion. Happens all day and 2x on Sun.

          There was no bitch until the got let go. It’s legalized prostitution with no happy ending.

      • Right. The man responsible for single-handedly populating Fox with infobabes was above copping a feel. Right.

    • Who do you want to hire as a lawyer – a frustrated leftist pitbull or a well adjusted normal chick?

      Give the guy a pass. Good bet that that POS Murdoch perpwalked Ailes out of the building.

    • Yeah, learning Susan Estrich was his lawyer raised my eyebrows as well.

      Estrich is definitely Progressive to the bone, even so, I read her syndicated column regularly.

      She tends to be a relatively straight-shooter for a leftist…

  4. I’m with you RF. Retrieve your GATS. I won’t comment (cough cough) about rich New York a-holes who are able to get an elusive gun permit. Oh what the he!! Trump,O’Reilly and Hannity…even John Stossel couldn’t (or wouldn’t) bribe the right dude.

    • How was he suppose to do that? They locked him out of the building and at that point he was negotiating whether or not to go into competition with them or take the golden parachute of some forty plus million dollars! I suspect because of his age, he decided to let his enemies buy him off.

      Don’t forget if he had gone into competition with them he could have hurt them badly by taking some of their top names with him and all the AD revenue that would have followed the people rather than the Fox brand. The gun news was just to piss on him, and the sort of thing that underhanded people do all the time. They will return his guns to his attorney or he might just report them stolen and name the folks that did the reporting as having done so.

    • FYI, Hannity and Trump both have NYC CCW’s. Anybody who is a “name” can get one. It’s just the rest who can’t.

  5. Who would not try to bed the woman of fox news? Andrea Tantros, Kimberly Gilfryole (or MILFryole) Megan McCain, etc….

  6. I have a new definition of “irresponsible gun owner”: one who votes Democrat. Ever.

    Everything else can be “dumb ass who happens to own a gun.”

  7. Besides Mr. Ailes being irresponsible with the truth, he is irresponsible with his right to bear armed. So surprising.

  8. How does TTAG know that Ailes did not inform management that he had guns in his office? Clearly, Ailes was not returned to his office to pack it up. His departure was not planned, and he likely left the office two weeks before his termination during the resulting investigation.

    I seriously doubt FNC security was not aware that Ailes stored guns in his private office. In either case, TTAG has no way of knowing that, as FNC is not commenting.

    Might want to think about that as you consider a retraction. I sure would.

    • Probably because they aren’t legal or registered, but the elite wealthy have an understanding with eachother & law enforcement I mean, do we have anything but heresay his guns were legal?

      • I seriously doubt a practicing attorney like Susan Estrich would make a hearsay claim that the guns were properly licensed – without first confirming it.

        For one, it could open Roger Ailes up to criminal prosecution, if it were not true. Had they not been registered and legal, it’s highly unlikely she would have commented at all.

        This further adds credence to the notion that Ailes was not acting irresponsible. Disappointed tha TTAG hasn’t posted at least an update clarifying that….

        Scratch that… Really disappointed in TTAG.

    • I suppose you have hard facts, other than an allegation from a butt hurt, scorned female former employee to back that up, right?

  9. I had one experience where after a merger and being told how valuable my group was, I arrived the next morning to find all our possessions in the hall, unsecured with post-it-notes with our names on them. Since I was already negotiating our move to another firm, I turned back to the elevator, went over to the other firm, hammered out a deal and then told them to send bonded messengers over for our stuff. Luckily, nobody had left a gun behind.

  10. By the logic of this article I could break down someone’s door and claim that any guns find are unsecured. Why does a locked door not qualify as an attempt to secure the guns. If I break down a locked door to a house can I claim that any guns outside of a safe are unsecured?

  11. You can’t have it both ways. Why is it that the gun is not the problem but the person using it is. Then we blame the gun owner for not securing the gun. I can see if young children get hold of a loaded gun but are there young children crawling around Roger Ailes’ office? Blaming the gun owner for not securing his guns is one step away form blaming the gun when someone shoots somebody.

    • Insurance companies would be denying claims for burglary if locked doors were considered unsecured. This is actually one step away from breaking into someone’s rented room and claiming there gun was unsecured in the securely locked room.

  12. The article makes absolutely no statement regarding whether the firearms were secure or not.

    And godforbid…..UNSECURED AMMO (skirt pulled-up over head)!!!!!!

    And godforbid…..Ailles had permits in NY!!! My response – good for him, now how’s about for the rest of us, Mayor DelBlasio??

  13. Say want you want, but Ailes and Fox News are the only news outlet that present the conservative side of the equation. They are also Second Amendment proponents for the most part, much unlike to main street media. As far as the harassment allegations go, that’s a subject for another day…

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