Former Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes used famed private investigator Bo Dietl to probe and discredit anyone perceived as a threat to the channel or Ailes himself, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Dietl told the Journal that he was hired by Ailes to look into the pasts of former anchor Gretchen Carlson and producer Andrea Mackris.

Carlson received a $20 million settlement from Ailes from a lawsuit she filed for sexual harassment in 2016. Mackris sued recently ousted anchor Bill O'Reilly for harassment in 2004 and received a $9 million settlement.

Dietl said he was specifically hired to find information to discredit Carlson and Mackris's claims.

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According to Dietl, he was paid to eavesdrop on Mackris's communications in an "establishment" to prove she wasn't under duress from alleged harassment, as she claimed in the lawsuit.

Ailes resigned from Fox News last July after multiple sexual harassment accusations, including from Carlson, while O'Reilly was ousted from the network last month in the wake of separate sexual harassment allegations.

In February, it was revealed that federal prosecutors were probing Fox News's parent company, 21st Century Fox, for "quietly settling sexual harassment claims against former Fox News chief Roger Ailes without reporting it to the media giant’s shareholders."