Teacher:In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Teacher: Now, understand the problem? Solve this instance: A spokesperson for Fox News has released a statement in response to Scottie Nell Hughes‘ allegations that Charles Payne raped her, and the network blacklisted her when she tried to report her complaints. 
  
 Mediaite received this statement from a Fox News spokesperson: 
  
 “The latest publicity stunt of a lawsuit filed by Doug Wigdor has absolutely no merit and is downright shameful. We will vigorously defend this. It’s worth noting that Doug is Ms. Hughes’ third representative in the last six months to raise some variation of these claims which concern events from four years ago, since it apparently took some time to find someone willing to file this bogus case.” 
  
 Ms. Hughes is not and has never been a Fox News or Fox Business employee, according to a source with knowledge of the situation who claims “the allegations were first raised by Hughes’ agent after CNN ended its contract with her and her lawyer began asking for a “business solution” to the allegations – demanding that Fox News hire Hughes as a contributor.” 
  
 The source added “when Fox News refused to do so, knowing that the two had a consensual affair, Hughes shopped a draft complaint along with her story to the LA Times. Payne was suspended and reinstated after the evidence showed that he and Hughes had a consensual affair.” Hughes declined several requests to participate in an investigation by Fox News’s counsel (Paul Weiss), refusing to turn over all her emails, let alone to be interviewed. 
  
 Hughes contributed on Fox frequently from 2013-2016, and her lawsuit claims it was during this time when the Fox Business host pressured her into a sexual relationship despite her protests. Payne recently returned to the network after he was suspended months ago when his alleged sexual misconduct was first reported. 
  
 [Image via screengrab] 
  
 — — 
  
 >> Follow Ken Meyer (@KenMeyer91) on Twitter 
  
 Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com ||||| Charles Payne, the Fox Business Network host who was recently reinstated after facing allegations of sexual harassment, now faces even stronger accusations, as the woman who made the claims filed suit against him as well as Fox News now alleges she was raped and subsequently defamed. 
  
 Scottie Nell Hughes may be best known as a Trump surrogate who regularly appeared on Time Warner’s CNN during the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. But she has also been a familiar face on Fox News Channel. In a complaint filed Monday in United States District Court in the Southern District of New York, Hughes claims Payne raped her in 2013 and alleges she was retaliated against after she came forward with charges a few years after the initial incident is said to have occurred. 
  
 An attorney for Payne, Jonathan Halpern, said his client would prevail against “outrageous” charges. Payne “vehemently denies any wrongdoing and will defend himself vigorously against this baseless complaint. We are confident that when the evidence is presented in this case, Mr. Payne will be fully vindicated and these outrageous accusations against him will be confirmed as completely false.” 
  
 Payne, who was suspended from his program “Making Money” in July after it was made known that harassment allegations had been levied against him by a former frequent Fox guest, was reinstated earlier this month. He denied the previous charges, in which Hughes, who has now admitted to being the accuser, alleged she was banned from Fox after ending an extramarital affair she had with the anchor in 2015. The analyst also alleged her Fox appearances were reduced after she terminated the relationship. 
  
 “On behalf of Scottie Nell Hughes, today we filed an action against Fox to hold it accountable for yet another case involving sexual harassment and retaliation inflicted by Fox executives in order to protect male, on-air talent,” said attorneys Douglas H. Wigdor and Jeanne M. Christensen, in a prepared statement. “We intend to aggressively litigate Ms. Hughes’s claims and hold Fox accountable to the fullest extent under the law.” Wigdor has several clients involved with legal actions against Fox News Channel. 
  
 “The latest publicity stunt of a lawsuit filed by Doug Wigdor has absolutely no merit and is downright shameful,” Fox News said in a statement. “We will vigorously defend this. It’s worth noting that Doug is Ms. Hughes’ third representative in the last six months to raise some variation of these claims which concern events from four years ago, since it apparently took some time to find someone willing to file this bogus case.” 
  
 The suit alleges Hughes brought her allegations in confidence to Fox News in June of this year. In the filing, Hughes alleges Payne sexually assaulted and raped her in July of 2013, then increased invitations to her to appear on his Fox Business program. The suit suggested Fox News might cite emails that describe a consensual relationship, but then alleged any link between the two was the result of Payne using “his position of power to pressure Ms. Hughes into submission.” 
  
 A bevy of allegations suggesting harassment and/or discrimination have been levied at Fox News Channel since its former leader, Roger Ailes, was ousted last year. Ailes had been accused of harassment by former anchor Gretchen Carlson. He denied the allegations and died earlier this year. In the interim, the various allegations, some of them sordid, have forced Fox News to part ways with Bill O’Reilly, Eric Bolling, and Bill Shine, among others. 
  
 The network’s parent company, 21st Century Fox, has been under scrutiny as it strives to acquire the remaining shares in European broadcaster Sky PLC that it does not own and its bid is examined by British government regulators. Critics have pointed to the allegations and lawsuits against Fox News as reason for not letting the transaction proceed. 21st Century Fox executives have said they expect the deal to close in 2018. ||||| The suit also names Dianne Brandi, the executive vice president of legal and business affairs at Fox News, and Irena Briganti, the network’s executive vice president of corporate communications. In the suit, Ms. Hughes says that Ms. Brandi and Ms. Briganti “knowingly and maliciously aided and abetted the unlawful employment practices, discrimination and retaliation” against her. The lawsuit claims that Ms. Brandi and Ms. Briganti “issued a false narrative to The National Enquirer that Ms. Hughes was a participant in an affair with Payne” and “revealed Ms. Hughes’s identity to The National Enquirer.” 
  
 Fox News said the lawsuit was “bogus” and “downright shameful.” 
  
 “We will vigorously defend this,” the network said in a statement. Fox News also said that the case was a “publicity stunt of a lawsuit” by Ms. Hughes’s lawyer, Douglas H. Wigdor. 
  
 Mr. Wigdor, who is representing several current and former Fox News employees in harassment and discrimination cases against the network, said Fox was victim-blaming. “Fox cannot spin its way out of this crisis – especially when only Fox is to blame for what happened,” he said in a statement. 
  
 The charges in Ms. Hughes’s lawsuit echo accusations made by several other current and former Fox News employees after the sexual harassment scandal at the network burst into public view last year, exposing a culture where women said they had faced harassment and feared reporting inappropriate behavior. The initial scandal led to the resignation of the network’s chairman, Roger Ailes, and subsequent allegations prompted the network to force out its most popular figure, Bill O’Reilly, among other personalities. Fox News’s parent company, 21st Century Fox, has attempted to clean up its workplace and move past the crisis, yet new allegations and litigation have continued to roil the network in recent months. 
  
 Ms. Hughes, 37, has been a familiar face on cable news in recent years. A vocal Trump supporter, she worked as a paid contributor at CNN during the 2016 presidential election. Her contract with CNN ended this past January. 
  
 According to the lawsuit, Ms. Hughes experienced a sudden decline in bookings across cable news networks in early 2017 and was told by a booking agent that Fox had blacklisted her because she “had an affair with someone at Fox.” As a result, Ms. Hughes said, she was taken out of consideration for positions in the Trump administration. |||||
Student:
A political commentator who says she was raped by Fox Business Network host Charles Payne is suing the host and the network, alleging that she was pressured into having a extramarital relationship with him—and that Fox blacklisted her when it ended. Scottie Nell Hughes, a frequent Fox guest between 2013 and 2016, alleges that Payne raped her in 2013 and then forced her into a sexual relationship, Variety reports. The lawsuit says that while emails might suggest the relationship was consensual, Payne used "his position of power to pressure Ms. Hughes into submission." The host was suspended in July while sexual harassment allegations were investigated and reinstated earlier this month. Hughes says she was promised a paid contributor role that never materialized. She says the network not only blacklisted her, it leaked stories about an affair to the press after she made her allegations. "In July of 2013, I was raped by Charles Payne," Hughes tells the New York Times. "In July of 2017, I was raped again by Fox News. Since then, I have been living an absolute hell." The lawsuit was filed by attorney Doug Wigdor, who has several clients that are suing Fox. In a statement, a Fox spokesperson called the lawsuit a "publicity stunt" from Wigdor that "has absolutely no merit and is downright shameful," Mediaite reports.