CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin announced Friday that he will depart from the network after 20 years for an undisclosed reason.
“Friends, I’ve decided that, after 20 years, I’m leaving @cnn after my vacation,” Toobin said in a tweet. “Was great to spend my last day on air with pals Wolf, Anderson and Don. Love all my former colleagues. Watch for my next book, about the Oklahoma City bombing, coming in 2023 from @simonandschuster.”
Friends, I’ve decided that, after 20 years, I’m leaving @cnn after my vacation. Was great to spend my last day on air with pals Wolf, Anderson and Don. Love all my former colleagues. Watch for my next book, about the Oklahoma City bombing, coming in 2023 from @simonandschuster
— Jeffrey Toobin (@JeffreyToobin) August 12, 2022
Toobin made the announcement just over a year after his return to the network from a hiatus after he was caught masturbating during a Zoom call with staffers from the New Yorker and WNYC. After the Zoom call incident in Oct. 2020, Toobin apologized, calling it “an embarrassingly stupid mistake.” CNN said they “granted” him time off to deal with “a personal issue.”
The New Yorker, where Toobin had been employed, first suspended and later fired him over the incident. He returned to CNN in June 2021, for the first time since the incident and apologized on air.
“I am sorry to my wife and to my family, but I’m also sorry to the people on the Zoom call, I’m sorry to my former colleagues at the New Yorker, I’m sorry to my current, fortunately still, colleagues at CNN and I’m sorry to the people who read my work, who watched me on CNN who thought I was a better person than this,” Toobin said in the statement. (RELATED: ‘He Was Sexually Harassing Himself Maybe’: Ana Navarro Brushes Off Toobin Zoom Call As ‘Accidental Exposure,’ Defends Return To CNN)
“Now, that’s not a defense. This was deeply moronic and indefensible,” Toobin told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota. “And you know, I have spent the seven subsequent months, miserable months in my life, I can certainly confess, trying to be a better person. I’m in therapy, trying to do some public service, working in a food bank, which I certainly am going to continue to do, working on a new book about the Oklahoma City bombing, but I am trying to become the kind of person that people can trust again,” he continued.
He added he is grateful that CNN chose to allow him to continue working as the network’s legal analyst after his termination of employment at the New Yorker.