Mr. Ferguson’s “Watergate” is a deep dive into events set off by the 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters and the cover up by the Nixon administration. In 2017, he watched as Mr. Trump fired his F.B.I. The lawsuit hinges on a conversation between Mr. Ferguson and A&E executives in June 2018, before the film was released. Mr. Ferguson has worked to collect pieces of evidence to support his contentions, among them an email he provided to The New York Times in which Mr. Lehrer acknowledged discussing the bipartisan nature of the network’s audience. In the email, Mr. Lehrer also denied the network was trying to suppress the documentary, writing that the rationale for exploring different airdates was to avoid the series getting swallowed up by heavy sports programming and election coverage.

Source: International New York Times March 22, 2021 21:38 UTC