New York State Attorney General Letitia James released new video footage on Thursday of Chris Cuomo‘s testimony to state investigators as part of their probe into sexual harassment allegations against his brother.
The videos from the July testimony show the since-fired CNN anchor admitting to advising his brother, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, on how to navigate a sexual harassment scandal despite his role as an allegedly non-biased news anchor.
Cuomo testified at the time that he told his brother not to “go after” the women who had accused him of sexual harassment and that “cancel culture is real,” the videos released Thursday show.
CNN fired Cuomo in December, days after a transcript of his testimony was released.
The new footage shows the younger Cuomo discussing conversations, text messages and emails with his brother and his staff about the scandal. He said he had been “trying to help” his brother.
“I think cancel culture is real, so does my brother,” he testified. “I advised him that you cannot ignore these. That it’s not going to go away, not in our society, not in our media culture, not in your party.”
“I told him ‘you have to be aware of that. That’s why you can’t go after your accusers. It’s not right and it’s not allowed,” he added. “The only path is process. That’s the only path. Have things investigated. Have somebody independent who looks at this, and let people judge what they find.”
The transcripts released by James’s office in November first contradicted the younger Cuomo’s claims that he was “not an advisor” to his brother amid his sexual harassment scandal and that he “wasn’t in control of anything,” and that he was only involved in meetings to listen and offer his take.
The documents revealed that the former CNN anchor was regularly in touch with Melissa DeRosa, the governor’s former top aide, as one after another the sexual harassment allegations began to pile up.
DeRosa regularly checked in with Cuomo asking whether he knew when damaging articles were expected to be published. He often responded that he would reach out to his media connections to gather more information.
Texts between DeRosa and Cuomo showed he tried to dig up dirt on Anna Ruch, who accused the then-governor of making inappropriate advances during a wedding reception.
“I have a lead on the wedding girl,” Chris Cuomo texted DeRosa two days after the New York Times published Ruch’s allegations.
Cuomo testified that his friend had “heard that maybe she had been put up to it.”
The former CNN anchor also testified that he had advised his “very good friend” Alec Baldwin to “stay out of it” when the actor offered to post a video decrying cancel culture in an attempt to defend the older Cuomo.
“I didn’t think Alec Baldwin weighing in was helpful or respectful to the situation,” Chris Cuomo said. “And I was trying to help my brother, and it just didn’t seem that helpful to me.”
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