The same day a motion to dismiss was filed in the Fox News defamation suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, attorneys for one of the defendants, Fox Business contributor Ed Butowsky, leveled a Rule 11 sanctions motion against Rod Wheeler and his attorneys at Wigdor LLP.

The sanctions motion, filed by Butowsky's counsel led by Spiro Harrison name attorney David Harrison, claims Wheeler's defamation suit over a now-retracted Fox News article is frivolous, with “no basis in fact or in law,” and was done “for an improper purpose.”

Wheeler's defamation suit, Wheeler v. Twenty-First Century Fox, 17-cv-05807, which includes Fox News and the writer of the article as co-defendants of Butowsky's, claims quotes attributed to Wheeler were never provided to the author, and were placed in the article to aid Butowsky's political objectives.