A phone recording between former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro and then-Fox producer Abby Grossberg reveals that each of them thought Sidney Powell a wacko.
Grossberg was a producer for Maria Bartiromo, one of Powell's go-to hosts for promoting falsehoods about Dominion voting machines. Grossberg is now suing Fox News, alleging, among other things, that the network pressured her to commit perjury and hid evidence she provided Fox lawyers in order to scapegoat her for the network's lies.
Navarro was a key figure in the effort to overturn the 2020 election, including pushing false conspiracy theories about Dominion voting machines. It was Powell’s conspiracy theories about Dominion, many aired on Bartiromo’s show, that became the basis for that company’s defamation suit and gigantic settlement.
Nicolle Wallace played the January 25, 2021 recording on Friday’s Deadline Whitehouse. First, Grossberg is heard mocking Powell for repeatedly sending confidential messages meant for a different Abby. Grossberg and Navarro laugh heartily at such ineptitude.
Then Navarro blames Powell for much, if not most, of Trump’s failure to overturn the 2020 election results. “You have no idea how much damage she did to our efforts,” Navarro tells Grossberg. He calls Powell “the turning point in our inability to prove the case because she was, like, so far out there that people, like, pulled back.”
Navarro can also be heard saying, “We were on the verge of some breakthroughs in the states and state legislature level and then that s*** happened and I was like, Katie bar the door. I was, like, damn, damn, this is not good.”
It was not clear from the aired recording whether Grossberg indicated she had always disdained Powell. But we do know that Grossberg helped promote the lies about Dominion and she certainly sounds chummy with Navarro in the recording. But no way does she deserve the mistreatment and toxic workplace she also alleges in her suit.
This recording is probably another from Grossberg’s collection. Let’s hope we get to hear lots more.
