Allison Gollust, the woman with whom former CNN President Jeff Zucker was having an affair, has resigned from her position as the network’s chief marketing officer following a third-party investigation.
WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar announced to CNN in a memo Tuesday that Gollust had resigned as chief marketing officer after the inquiry found ethical violations as a result of the relationship. CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter shared the memo on Twitter.
PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL DISTRICT PULLS CNN 10 FROM CLASSROOMS
Gollust was initially going to retain her role after Zucker resigned earlier this month for not disclosing the relationship during an investigation into matters surrounding the firing of CNN anchor Chris Cuomo.
Brand new memo from Jason Kilar: “The investigation found violations of Company policies, including CNN’s News Standards and Practices, by Jeff Zucker, Allison Gollust, and Chris Cuomo.” pic.twitter.com/Xu1HQJw9cT
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) February 16, 2022
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Gollust wrote a letter to CNN colleagues claiming that WarnerMedia, CNN’s parent company, assured her that she could announce her resignation.
“WarnerMedia’s statement tonight is an attempt to retaliate against me and change the media narrative in the wake of their disastrous handling of the past two weeks,” she wrote in the statement obtained by Daily Beast editor Lachlan Cartwright. “It is deeply disappointing that after spending the last nine years defending and upholding CNN’s highest standards of journalistic integrity, I would be treated this way as I leave.”
Below is the letter Allison Gollust sent to her CNN colleagues regarding her resignation, obtained by @LachCartwright
To say she goes scorched earth would be an understatement. pic.twitter.com/WfKVwbJRR6
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) February 16, 2022
Zucker oversaw Cuomo’s firing after it was revealed that he aided his brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in fending off sexual harassment allegations. Gollust formerly worked for Andrew Cuomo as a communications director in 2012 and was hired at CNN a month after Zucker in 2013.
The investigation, which Kilar said concluded this weekend, found that there were considerable ethical lapses and breaches of company policy involving entanglement with the Cuomo administration and inappropriate sexual behavior among the Cuomo brothers, Zucker, and Gollust.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that while Chris Cuomo was initially suspended in November for using his journalistic resources against his brother’s accusers, he was fired when he was accused of sexual assault himself.
Chris Cuomo’s lawyers then requested that CNN preserve all documents detailing the interactions between network employees and employees of the governor’s office, which would have exposed that Zucker had allegedly coached Andrew Cuomo to use his COVID-19 briefings to attack former President Donald Trump. Representatives for Chris Cuomo and Zucker have denied the allegations they faced.
The following investigation into Chris Cuomo found that in addition to Zucker’s relationship with the former governor, he also hadn’t disclosed his relationship with Gollust, which, as he was her supervisor, was forbidden by company policy. Combined with evaporating confidence in his leadership by new Discovery executives, with which WarnerMedia is set to merge, it was enough to force Zucker, and eventually Gollust, out of CNN.
