and instructed them on how to carry out the hoax. smollett is accused of lying to police when he reported that he was the victim of the assault in downtown chicago. smollett s defense attorney says he was the real victim and that the brothers accounts run reliable. we are hearing from cnn anchor chris cuomo tonight about his indefinite suspension from the network. the move came in the wake of news about his involvement in trying to find information about shower. sexual harassment accusers about his brother then new york governor andrew cuomo who then later resigned. the extent of cuomo s efforts to help his brother came to light this week. fox news media and list and host of fox news media buzz howard kurtz is here with the latest. good evening, bret. chris cuomo spoke out today on his radio show. it hurts to even say it. it s embarrassing. but i understand it. and i understand why some people
feel the way they do about what i did. i have apologized in the past. i mean it. it s the last thing i ever wanted to do was compromise any of my colleagues. the suspension is an embarrassing moment for cnn after months in which the network took no action against its top-rated star no. internal inquiry and no slap on the wrist. jeff zucker waited until orchestrating the defense brother andrew cuomo and funneling shower. sexual harassment. that led he led to sharp and liberal bastions of the view. this is abuse of power. what this this took place the only reason that chris cuomo was able to do any of this, he was able to get sources on some of the accusers. the second the new york times and the atlantic turned against chris cuomo, chris cuomo was thrown off the ship. helping a brother and a friend in the worst moment of
cuomo for his part is still dealing from the fallout for privately advising his brother andrew cuomo on dealing with sexual harassment allegations by joining conference calls that included the new york governor s top aides and advisers that led to a prime time apology. i understand why that was a problem for cnn it will not happen again. it was a mistake. i think he made a huge mistake by being on that call. i mean, you just don t want to be part of the official apparatus of the governor of new york s office. cnn called cuomo s actions inappropriate but has resisted calls to punish him the network also cut ties with middle east freelancer raaja for tweeting to 80,000 followers that the world needs another hitler and calling the israelis terrorists seven years after making similar pro-hitler comments. cnn called those statements abhorrent. all this taking place as cnn is getting yet another corporate owner. three years after being bought by at&t, the network will join a
pandemic and others thought it was totally inappropriate. was that the original sin here in your view? yes. i found the interviews, good, engaging and formal and humorous at times but at the time i had the same thought, is this the right way to go. and now that we ve seen how cuomo handled the governor, the governor handled covid and there were problems there in terms of disclosure and honesty, i don t think the brother is the right person probe that and cnn has a lot of other anchors and it is hard to criticize or suspend chris cuomo now after you ve allowed a unjournalistic or bad journalistic practice for much of last year. i know that andrew cuomo is a governor of the biggest states in the country and his handling of covid is important but cnn has a lot of other anchors to interview cuomo and not his brother. cnn parting ways with rick
network strongly condemns the practices of the department of justice revealed. do you have a sense that we ll keep learning about other leaked probes affecting other newsrooms? i think it seems likely, doesn t it, brian. when you think about the relationship that trump had with all of the media. right. it feels like clearly that is entirely possible. i think it puts america in a very difficult position whether it comes to taking on china or russia and spreading the word about the importance of press freedom when americans, american journalists were spied upon. it is wholly repugnant. let s move to the story about the cuomo brothers. the second story on the list. revealing chris cuomo joined a series of conference calls to advise his brother andrew cuomo about how to handle the sexual harassment scandal engulfed the govern s office. some here at cnn were bothered