Okay. It just seemed like their initial approach was "one of your big guys (and we're not saying who) did some bad stuff. Give us 60M or we're going to sue."
That screams extortion - and IIRC, extortion is illegal even if the action you threaten (suing) is otherwise perfectly legal.
If these claims are completely meritless, you may be correct. However, if there is even a shade of truth to them (including if she was a willing participant) then there would be a chance that a jury would find O'Reilly liable. As such her attorney, as a duty to explore settling all claims at any point in the litigation process. That is not extortion.