Van Jones tells Fox News to cease and desist

Joe Pompeo
·Media Reporter

Van Jones, the Obama administration's former green jobs czar is considering legal action against Fox News. Jones had resigned his post in 2009 in 2009 following a barrage of attacks from conservative commentators.

Jones's attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter Monday to the network's executive vice president for legal and business affairs claiming that Fox News hosts Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and outgoing anchor Glenn Beck made "a series of sensational and inflammatory charges" against his client.

The letter, which the Huffington Post obatined, demands that Fox "immediately cease and desist from further dissemination of [these] statements or any statements similar in substance," else "we are to explore all available legal remedies to address the injury caused by Mr. Jones by these false and defamatory statements."

The letter takes close aim at Beck, who is set to exit Fox News on June 30.

Beck had gone after Jones on more than a dozen episodes of his 5 p.m. show, describing him alternately as "a guy who called for radicalism and violence on the streets" (March 3, 2011), someone who "spent some time in jail" (March 2, 2011), a "9/11 truther" (March 23, 2011) and "an unrepentant Communist revolutionary" (Feb. 28, 2011), according to the letter, which disputes each of the claims.

"I thought that FOX TV or Beck's producers would take note of the facts and rein him in, without me having to take legal action," Jones told HuffPo. "They didn't."

A Fox News spokeswoman told The Cutline Monday night: "We've received the letter and it's under review."

In an interview with MSNBC's Ed Schultz, Jones explained why he waited two years after resigning from the White House to "punch back" at Fox News and Beck.

"When I was in the White House, I thought it would be better for me to not be a distraction," he said. "If you had told me that two years later the guy would still be going on and on like a stalker, maybe I would have made a different decision."

You can watch the video below:

(Screen-grab courtesy of TV Newser)