Chris Cuomo is still out there fighting to be heard.
The disgraced former CNN host is on a rampage, alleging that the network still owes him $15 million, but also wants over $100 million from CNN over damages to his reputation and credibility. He is also accusing Don Lemon, Jake Tapper, and Brian Stelter of a “smear campaign” to discredit him in the wake of his firing.
In a memo obtained by Mediaite, Cuomo’s lawyers are trying to make the case that Cuomo is the victim in all this.
In Cuomo’s filing — which was obtained by Mediaite and first reported by Deadline — his lawyers argue CNN had full knowledge of his dealings with the governor.
“CNN, Zucker and Gollust were fully aware of the scope of Cuomo’s assistance to Gov. Cuomo and in fact participated in and encouraged the same behavior,” the filing states.
In May of 2021, Cuomo apologized on his CNN show for advising his brother and said “it will not happen again.”
The new filing also claims Cuomo was fired in part due to an anonymous allegation of sexual misconduct said to have occurred before his time at CNN, and accuses the network of “not even attempt[ing] to investigate the veracity of the anonymous allegations against Cuomo before deciding to terminate his employment.”
READ RELATED: Workshop to Create Awareness Against Human Trafficking
The the circumstances of Cuomo’s firing, his lawyers argue, are grounds for a big payout from the network.
The accusations against his former colleagues are also pretty entertaining. This is from the filing itself, according to Mediaite.
An additional, and similarly significant, legally unjustifiable breach of the Agreement was the complete failure by Zucker to abide by the terms of the Agreement by failing to instruct CNN employees not to disparage Cuomo. The Agreement requires that CNN “make reasonable efforts to instruct its employees not to make any intentionally disparaging comments regarding [Cuomo] in the context of [Cuomo’s] business and professional activities.”
Jake Tapper, a CNN anchor, publicly assailed Cuomo’s ethics as a journalist and falsely claimed that Cuomo “threatened” Zucker. Don Lemon, another CNN anchor, falsely claimed that Cuomo had been “found to break with those journalistic standards and then [was] paid handsomely for it.” Brian Stelter, CNN’s chief media correspondent, said Cuomo was “acting like an unpaid staffer” for Gov. Cuomo and had been “trying to burn the place down” after CNN terminated him. Countless anonymous CNN staffers slammed Cuomo in the press, calling him “both journalistically and morally immoral,” saying “his biggest crime was he lied to Zucker,” and labeling him “toxic and distracting.” CNN itself released a statement that Cuomo “made a number of accusations that are patently false” and that he was terminated for a “lack of candor.”
Cuomo was fired from CNN after several journalism scandals, ranging from his clear conflict of interests in how he interviewed his brother, then-governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, on the air (with the help of Jeff Zucker and Allison Gollust, who have both also been fired from CNN) to his clearly unethical attempts to help said brother navigate through his sexual harassment/assault allegations. The younger Cuomo apparently misrepresented his involvement with his brother to CNN higher-ups, ultimately leading to his dismissal from the network.
The allegations of a “smear campaign” from Tapper, Lemon, and Stelter are pretty absurd, as Cuomo disgraced himself with his behavior. It was heavily criticized at the time by multiple non-CNN outlets while Stelter himself ran cover for Cuomo. It wasn’t until after Cuomo everything happening within had come to light that things began to leak from the network, and by that point Cuomo’s reputation as a journalist was already ruined.
But Cuomo is going to do what the Cuomo brothers do best: They’ll deflect blame, play the victim in all this, and fight back for their own justice through intimidation and lashing out. But, I don’t think the new management at CNN is going to budge.
Source:
