Fred Karger Files Complaint, Fox Reported to FEC

Fred Karger followed through with his pledge to hand-deliver a legal complaint to Fox News headquarters today in New York.

A 158-page document was also sent to the Federal Election Commission, outlining how the only gay Republican presidential candidate was barred from the Fox News Channel's debate in Iowa. Karger says the network suddenly changed the rules for who qualifies after he met the previously outlined threshold.

"When I did not meet the criteria for your May 5, 2011 debate in Greenville, South Carolina I did not object," Karger wrote in a letter to Fox. "When I did not meet CNN's very specific 'pre-established objective criteria' for its June 13, 2011 debate in Manchester, New Hampshire, I did not object then either. But when you changed the criteria after I qualified for the August 13th debate, I strongly object."

Karger points to five polls that show him averaging the 1% needed nationally to qualify for the debate. But a Fox news representative said before the debate that the polls selected were either too old or conducted poorly.

In the FEC complaint, Karger says Fox invented new rules.

"Fox News Channel never released acceptable polling companies or acceptable polling methodology in its pre-established objective criteria," the complaint states. "It appears that because I met their originally stated criteria, Fox News changed their criteria in order to exclude me."