CNN did not hire Jeffrey Toobin to analyze Andrew Cuomo’s sexual harassment allegations

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On August 10, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced his intention to step down as part of ongoing criminal investigations. State Attorney General Letitia James recently released a report finding Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women.

Cuomo has denied the charges. For weeks, allegations of sexual harassment against Cuomo have come under scrutiny, as have conflict of interest issues involving CNN and host Chris Cuomo, who often had his governor brother on his show.

On August 3, conservative commentator Clay Travis called the network over another apparent conflict of interest.

“CNN currently has Zoom Jeffrey Toobin masturbator to analyze Andrew Cuomo’s sexual harassment allegations as a legal expert,” he tweeted. “Surprising.”

Chris Stigall, a conservative radio host, tweeted something similar that day alongside an image from a CNN show with a panel of four guests. The man in the lower left-hand corner looks like Toobin, who spent eight months off CNN after exposing himself to fellow New Yorker magazine colleagues on a Zoom call. Toobin returned to CNN as chief legal analyst for networks in June.

But it wasn’t Toobin who was discussing the Attorney General’s report on Cuomo. It was CNN political director David Chalian. You can watch a preview of the segment here.

Travisand’s political commentator Megyn Kelly posted corrections. Stigall also tweeted a follow-up saying it wasn’t Toobin.

But screenshots from Travis’ original tweet are still streaming online without that mea culpa.

It was posted on Instagram recently on August 10.

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We assess allegations that this segment shows Toobin analyzing Cuomo’s sexual harassment allegations as False.

This fact check was originally published by PolitiFact, which is part of the Poynter Institute. It is republished here with permission. See the sources for this fact check here and other PolitiFact fact checks here.

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