The New York Times reported that CNN fired Chris Cuomo after a woman accused him of sexual assault during lunch in his office in 2011 when he worked at ABC.
We already knew of one accusation against Cuomo at ABC. However, CNN also made us believe the bosses fired him because he helped his brother Andrew, the former New York governor, fight his own sexual assault allegations by using his media resources.
One line in CNN’s statement now makes sense (emphasis mine): “Chris Cuomo was suspended earlier this week pending further evaluation of new information that came to light about his involvement with his brother’s defense. We retained a respected law firm to conduct the review, and have terminated him, effective immediately. While in the process of that review, additional information has come to light.”
Could the following information in The New York Times be that “additional information” CNN discovered?
On December 1, 2021, CNN received a letter addressed to CNN’s general counsel David Vigilante from lawyer Debra S. Katz the night after Brian Stelter said on-air that Cuomo would return in January. From The New York Times:
The letter was on behalf of the woman who had worked with Mr. Cuomo at ABC News.It relayed a story that had begun in 2011 when the woman, who was referred to as Jane Doe, was a young temporary ABC employee hoping for a full-time job. One day, after Mr. Cuomo, an anchor, had offered her career advice, he invited her to lunch in his office, according to the letter, interviews with the woman and emails between her and Mr. Cuomo.When she arrived, there was no food. Instead, Mr. Cuomo badgered her for sex, and after she declined, he assaulted her, she said. She ran out of the room.Later that day, the woman, who was still seeking a job, tried to smooth things over by writing Mr. Cuomo friendly emails.The Times interviewed five friends and former colleagues who said the woman told them Mr. Cuomo had made unwelcome sexual requests. She said that only in the past year did she begin to tell people that Mr. Cuomo had also assaulted her, which she hadn’t previously divulged because it was private and painful.
Katz wrote in her letter that Cuomo reached out to her during the peak time of #MeToo:
Mr. Cuomo proposed arranging a CNN segment about the company where she worked doing public relations. The woman tried to avoid any contact with Mr. Cuomo, but CNN ultimately broadcast a segment anyway.“After years without any substantive communication from Mr. Cuomo whatsoever, Ms. Doe suspected he was concerned about her coming forward publicly with her allegations and wanted to use the proposed segment as an opportunity to ‘test the waters’ and discourage her from going on the record about his sexual misconduct,” Ms. Katz wrote.The Times reviewed Mr. Cuomo’s messages to the woman and the segment and spoke with her boss at the time. Her boss said that after the segment aired, the woman shared some of the details of the encounter and Mr. Cuomo’s subsequent outreach.Ms. Katz said the woman, who has been “deeply traumatized,” doesn’t want to become “a pawn in an internecine war between Zucker, Chris Cuomo and CNN” and won’t be saying anything further. She “deserves and requests privacy,” Ms. Katz said.
On December 3, 2021, a CNN lawyer and Katz hatched a plan to hand over evidence proving the woman’s allegations. Zucker fired Cuomo before they could move forward with the plan.
Cuomo’s spokesman called the allegations false and no one asked the former anchor “about the allegations prior to being terminated or given an opportunity to respond.”
Could this be the spark that led to Zucker resigning over an inappropriate consensual relationship with a colleague? It’s possible:
The day after he was fired, Mr. Cuomo hired Bryan Freedman, a Hollywood litigator known for tough negotiating tactics and for securing multimillion-dollar settlements for aggrieved television stars. (In Mr. Cuomo’s case, he planned to seek money owed under the anchor’s contract and compensation for future lost earnings.)On Dec. 5, Mr. Freedman sent a letter to CNN demanding that the network preserve all documents related to any dealings between any CNN employee and anyone in the governor’s office.It was a clear signal that a key element of Mr. Cuomo’s defense would be that Mr. Zucker and others at CNN had acted similarly to Mr. Cuomo in communicating with the governor, with no repercussions.
Zucker resigned on February 2. He admitted his relationship with longtime friend and colleague Allison Gollust, CNN’s Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer.
Zucker and Gollust claim the relationship blossomed during the pandemic. History tells us that is probably untrue. Gollust seemed to follow Zucker to new jobs in the last 20 years. She also worked as Andrew Cuomo’s communications director.
Gollust kept her job but resigned on Tuesday after an investigation: “Based on interviews of more than 40 individuals and a review of over 100,000 texts and emails, the investigation found violations of Company policies, including CNN’s News Standards and Practices, by Jeff Zucker, Allison Gollust, and Chris Cuomo.”
The CNN drama is likely not over.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY