Fitzpatrick on Tuesday called for Trump to move Steve Witkoff, a senior adviser to the president who has been formally afforded Cabinet rank by the president, to the side and instead push Secretary of State Marco Rubio to lead the negotiations. The congressman’s statement came via social media after a leak of a transcript of a call between Russian officials and Witkoff, a leak that seems designed by deep state types to scuttle an emerging peace plan. In the final hours of the negotiations as the president seeks to bring a deal in for a landing, many across establishment media and deep state types seeking to undermine the peace plan that Trump has proposed have seemingly tried to create divisions among the president’s leadership team on this issue, which includes among others Witkoff, Rubio, Vice President JD Vance, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, and more.
That’s what makes Fitzpatrick’s decision so fascinating–and perilous for Fox News. Fitzpatrick and Heinrich earlier this year announced they were engaged after dating for several years, and in the aftermath of the announcement Fox News made clear in comments to the Washington Post that since the beginning of their relationship—which Heinrich got permission for from Fox News bosses—that she is to “steer clear” of any stories that “involve” her now-fiancé, the congressman from Pennsylvania, “in any way.”
“Heinrich is the senior White House correspondent for Fox News and a rising star at the network,” the Washington Post’s Roxanne Roberts reported in July. “She and Fitzpatrick have been dating for four years — but before their first date, she consulted her bosses and got the go-ahead, with the proviso that she steer clear of any stories that involve him in any way.”
Fox News even sent a formal statement to the Washington Post on this matter for that story.
“FOX News has policies in place to ensure there are no conflicts of interest between our journalists and the stories or subjects they cover,” Fox News said in that statement to the Post.
So, as such, now with the congressman—Heinrich’s fiancé—deciding to formally make the entire story over the Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations to end the war about himself by calling on the president to sideline Witkoff, Fox News is faced with an important ethical choice here: Stand by that previous rule, or not.
For now, the network is not saying whether it stands by the rule and whether it will formally recuse Heinrich from all coverage of Russia and Ukraine after her congressman fiancé’s fateful decision.
Instead, a Fox News spokesperson issued a very vague statement to Breitbart News defending Heinrich’s previous reporting–but saying nothing about whether she can continue this coverage moving forward into the future. “Jacqui Heinrich’s personal relationship has nothing to do with her war coverage, which remains independent, rigorous and grounded in her deep reporting of the facts,” a Fox News spokesperson told Breitbart News on Wednesday morning.
That statement issued Wednesday raises more questions than it answers. Again, nobody is questioning her previous reporting and work on these matters—what matters is what happens moving forward. Now that Fitzpatrick has by all accounts made himself a centerpiece of this story with his public criticisms of the president and his team, this forces the network into a decision moving forward from here about whether to allow Heinrich to continue to do this work.
For now, the network is refusing to answer that question. And since it’s Thanksgiving week, and Heinrich has not been on the air since her fiancé made this decision and does not appear to be scheduled on air anytime soon through the holiday week, Fox News might have some time, and between now and when she’s back on things may cool down a bit on this front so Fox News might even avoid answering this ethical conundrum altogether in the end. That being said, if this controversy keeps going when she’s back on post-holidays, it’s going to present a major problem for Fox News and it could become one of the biggest media scandals this year. Navigating these tricky types of relationships is very difficult for a news network, and especially after Fox News decided to put guardrails preemptively around Heinrich when it comes to matters involving Fitzpatrick that can complicate things even further. In addition, specifically defining exactly how much of this is now involving Fitzpatrick is even trickier.
But as they gather for the Thanksgiving holidays this week, Heinrich is probably wishing her congressman fiancé had not issued that statement on this issue because he put her in an impossible position and possibly hurt Fox News in an irreparable way. Where this all goes from here could get very interesting.
While not a lot of folks are publicly weighing in on this conflict yet–it is the holidays–well-connected folks throughout Washington have made it very clear to Breitbart News they are watching this storyline very closely. After all, Trump himself criticized Heinrich aggressively earlier this year, saying she belongs on CNN, not Fox News.
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