The situation has quickly become acrimonious. Exhibit A: dueling statements from CNN’s reps and Cuomo’s personal spokesman, who said that Zucker and his client were “widely known to be extremely close and in regular contact, including about the details of Mr. Cuomo’s support for his brother. There were no secrets about this, as other individuals besides Mr. Cuomo can attest.” CNN hit back with a stern response: “We are disappointed with Chris’s statement. He has made a number of accusations that are patently false. This reinforces why he was terminated for violating our standards and practices, as well as his lack of candor.”

What to make of the daylight between these two accounts? One person familiar with Zucker and Cuomo’s conversations in recent months said, “Chris believes he was transparent about what he was doing and what Jeff needed to know.” But another source familiar with their talks said that Cuomo never apprised Zucker of the most damaging details. Those details include Cuomo pursuing a tip to potentially discredit one of his brother’s accusers, attempting to gather intel on planned stories by Politico and The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow, and taking direction from Andrew Cuomo’s top lieutenant, Melissa DeRosa, whose text messages with Cuomo helped seal his fate. “The most damning stuff was from Melissa’s texts,” the source said.

There’s another open question concerning an unrelated matter that emerged last week while Cravath began its investigation. As The New York Times first reported, the attorney Debra Katz, who represents one of Andrew Cuomo’s accusers, contacted CNN on Wednesday regarding an allegation of sexual misconduct against Chris Cuomo by a former colleague from another network, who wishes to remain anonymous. (Cuomo used to work at ABC News; in September, former ABC executive producer Shelley Ross revealed in a Times op-ed that Cuomo, during a party and in front of the producer’s husband, had “greeted me with a strong bear hug while lowering one hand to firmly grab and squeeze the cheek of my buttock.” Cuomo later emailed Ross an apology and said he was “ashamed”; he told the Times, “I apologized to her then, and I meant it.”)

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/12/12/cnn-and-chris-cuomo-are-on-the-brink-of-all-out-war