New York Post, Sunday, November 15, 2020
nypost.com
More than 74,000 sex-
abuse accusers are now
poised to seek money dam-
ages from the Boy Scouts of
America ahead of a Monday
court deadline, The Post
has learned.
“There are over 74,
claims filed as of this morn-
ing, and it dwarfs anything
we have ever seen in the his-
tory of institutional child
sexual abuse,” lawyer An-
drew Van Arsdale of Abused
in Scouting said Saturday.
Victims have until 5 p.m.
Monday to file a money-
damages claim against the
Boy Scouts in federal bank-
ruptcy court. Another attor-
ney, Jordan Merson of Man-
hattan firm Merson Law,
believed the number of vic-
tims had reached 73,000.
Lawyer Jason Amala, of
the firm Pfau, Cochran, Ver-
tetis, Amala, pegged the
number of victims who
have come forward at a
much lower 61,000 — still
far higher than the more
than 12,000 victims once
tabulated by the organiza-
tion itself.
The Boy Scouts, which
declared Chapter 11 bank-
ruptcy in February, said it
was “devastated by the
number of lives impacted
by past abuse in Scouting
and moved by the bravery
of those who came forward... We are deeply sorry.”
Kathianne Boniello
Deluge
of Scout
lawsuits
Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo discussed “global
challenges” with a handful
of members of a Paris think
tank Saturday at the start of
a seven-country tour of Eu-
rope and the Middle East.
The travels that were cer-
tain to be awkward since all
the nations on his schedule
have congratulated Presi-
dent-elect Joe Biden for
winning the White House
on Nov. 3.
Pompeo was an all but in-
visible US envoy on what
may be his last official trip
to France.
The trip is aimed at shor-
ing up the priorities of the
outgoing administration of
President Trump. APPompeo on
farewell tour
By DANA KENNEDYMaria Bartiromo isn’t budging.
Unlike well-known journalists
including Megyn Kelly, Lara Lo-
gan, Glenn Greenwald, Sharyl Att-
kisson, Trish Regan and others
who’ve either been fired from their
jobs (or quit in disgust) for not
toeing the mainstream line, Bartir-
omo sits securely atop her perch at
Fox Business. She’s still firing sal-
vos about Russiagate being a hoax
and possible voter fraud in the
election — and angrily calling out
censorship on social media.
Just don’t call her a conspiracy
theorist.
Bartiromo says that people who
began smearing her after the 2016
election for being pro-Trump or
“right wing” have it all wrong. She
said she’s voted both Democrat and
Republican over the years. Don’t
even mention a 2018 headline that
read “Maria Bartiromo’s Strange
Trip from Money Honey to One of
Trump’s Top Boosters” or she will
erupt.
“It’s not about Trump, it’s about
fairness,” Bartiromo said during
an interview on Zoom Friday
morning from home, where she’d
just finished anchoring her three-
hour “Mornings with Maria” show.
“I’m a proud American and this is
still the greatest country in the
world. But the business of being in-
nocent until proven guilty goes out
the window these days. It’s like oh,forget that, it’s Trump.”
As someone used to speaking her
mind, she was furious at being
flagged by Twitter for some pre-
election tweets. So she announced
Nov. 6 she was switching to the new
social media app, Parler. She
amassed more than 1 million follow-
ers in just a few days and last week
helped make Parler, billed as a non-
biased, free speech-driven platform,
the No. 1 free downloaded app.
“I’m not going to sit around and
get censored by some faceless 20-
somethings who don’t like some-
thing I say,” Bartiromo said. “I con-
sider all of that election interfer-
ence.”
The Anti-Defamation Group said
Friday that Parler has become
a haven for “hate groups,
extremists and conspir-
acy theorists.” Parler
CEO John Matze said
it’s a “town square
where everyone is
welcome. We ask ev-
eryone to judge us
based off our neutral-
ity, not the people who
use the platform.”
Bartiromo was still using
Twitter as of last week but said
she will be “dropping scoops” on
Parler more than Twitter.
“Mornings with Maria” is one of
17 hours of television Bartiromo,
53, does per week. She rises at 3
a.m. every day to get ready for her
6 a.m. show, a grueling schedulethat goes back more than 25 years.
She comes across as focused and
tenacious, with enough Brooklyn
in her (she was born and raised in
Bay Ridge) that you wouldn’t want
to cross her.
She said she believes Trump
was the victim of an at-
tempted coup that be-
gan even before his
election, based on
what she said was
careful study of doc-
uments and other in-
formation provided
to her by members of
Congress and govern-
ment officials. She also said
she believes the Democrats may
have committed voter fraud and
says the courts should decide who
won the 2020 presidential race.
“I spent 20 years at CNBC and 5
years at CNN,” said Bartiromo, who
joined Fox Business in 2014. “I
never really studied politics and
policy. I didn’t know how Washing-ton worked. I knew there were
dirty tricks but I didn’t know the
extent of it until I learned what
they were doing to Trump. I was so
shocked and outraged that this kind
of behavior actually goes on, that
you can come up with a story about
the president colluding with Russia
and weaponize the intelligence
agencies of the US government. I
was just not buying the collusion
story. That was the line everyone
had to get behind and I wouldn’t.”
To hear her, Bartiromo’s the same
tough “truth seeker” who held off
misogynistic male traders on the
floor of the New York Stock Ex-
change when she began reporting
there in 1995.
“It’s not about politics with her,”
former NYSE chairman Richard
Grasso, who greenlit Bartiromo’s
CNBC debut at the NYSE, told The
Post. “It’s about what she thinks is
right and what she thinks is the
truth. She calls them like she sees
them. She always has.”tough gig: Before Fox Business, Maria Bartiromo reported from the floor of
the male-dominated NYSE, where in 2002 she greeted Nelson Mandela
(above). Now she’s on Parler, an app billed as a free-speech “town square.”Getty ImagesBartiromo defiant
‘Parler’
talk by
star of
Fox Biz
Getty Images