O'Reilly Producer Outed as Fox News "Mole"

04-12-2012 • http://slatest.slate.com, By Josh Voorhees

Fox News spokesperson told Mediaite late Wednesday that network officials had fired Muto after learning he was the author of the behind-the-scenes Gawker posts, adding that they were "continuing to explore legal recourse" against the former staffer and "possibly others."

In a Gawker post, Muto confirmed the news.

"In the end, it was the digital trail that gave me away," he wrote. "They knew that someone, using my computer login, had accessed the sources for two videos that ended up on Gawker over the past few weeks. They couldn't prove it entirely, but I was pretty much the only suspect."

Fox News said Wednesday afternoon that it had discovered the identity of a current (but we're guessing soon-to-be former) staffer who began writing behind-the-scenes dispatches for Gawker the previous day.

"We found the person and we’re exploring legal options at this time," a spokesperson for the cable news network told Mediaite.

The unnamed staffer, however, quickly responded with a post saying that as far as he/she knew his/her identity remained a secret within the cable news network's HQ. "If Fox has smoked me out, it's news to me," the person wrote on Gawker shortly after the news broke. "I'm still here. Back to work"