Jeffrey Toobin said Friday that he is quitting CNN after 20 years in a surprise tweet.
Toobin insists he departed on his own, but new boss Chris Licht may have driven him out.
CNN’s discredited ex-boss Jeff Zucker welcomed back the analyst who was caught masturbating on a Zoom chat with New Yorker colleagues.
Chris is focused on turning CNN around, a source told DailyMail.com. He’s not ego-driven and listens to others.
“He’s shifting CNN back to the centre, he eliminated breaking news cut-ins and graphics that drove everyone crazy, and he knows no one will shed a tear over Toobin’s departure, particularly CNN’s ladies.
Toobin was sacked from The New Yorker after 27 years after he was discovered masturbating on a Zoom call with coworkers.
When he started self-gratifying, he didn’t know his camera was still on. CNN suspended him for eight months before rehiring him, angering many viewers.
Some in the corporation regarded Toobin’s departure as part of a larger effort by the new leader, Chris Licht, to clean up the network following scandals involving Chris Cuomo and Jeff Zucker.
Source: ‘He merely wants to fix 9pm. We want Dana Bash to get that spot.
Dana is a neutral journalist who appeals to all sides.
Chris Cuomo’s programme Cuomo Prime Time was cancelled in late November after the host was suspended and then dismissed for supporting his brother, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, during a sexual harassment scandal.
Since November, CNN has tested Jim Acosta, Laura Coates, Michael Smerconish, and Sarah Sidner as 9pm programme replacements.
Toobin came on CNN programmes and stated he’d miss his coworkers.
Toobin’s return to CNN was preceded by a grovelling interview in which he apologised to his colleagues for his ‘truly idiotic’ conduct and claimed he was ‘extremely thankful’ for being brought back on television.
In his first interview, he apologised to everyone on the Zoom conversation.
Toobin said, ‘They were horrified and outraged.’
‘They probably concluded it wasn’t for them.
They knew I’d regret it, and I did.
I started apologising publicly and privately on that day.
Toobin masturbated on a Zoom conversation with his New Yorker colleagues during election coverage in October.
He insists he silenced himself and was no longer visible on the Zoom call.
‘I wasn’t thinking well or much, and it was unexplainable.
‘In my defence (which is nothing), I didn’t believe I was on the call. I thought no one saw me. He assumed he’d ended the Zoom call.
“This was dumb and indefensible, but that’s part of the tale.”
Toobin spent’seven horrible months’ off-air ‘trying to be a better person’
He’s received counselling and volunteered.
He remarked, “I’m trying to regain people’s confidence.”
Toobin called his firing by the New Yorker ‘excessive’
‘I’m fallible and make errors. My behaviour is unjustifiable. Only the consequences matter.
CNN decided differently than The New Yorker.
I won’t argue or justify.
‘It was wrong, dumb, and I’m trying to improve.
CNN has my eternal gratitude.
Toobin was a New Yorker staff writer since 1993 before the Zoom incident.
CNN contributor since 2002.
He notably covered the OJ Simpson trial for the New Yorker in the 1990s and subsequently authored a book about it that inspired the 2016 American Crime Story TV programme.
Toobin is a Harvard graduate and former assistant US attorney in Brooklyn.