Hearing Jussie Smollett’s testimony on Monday regarding texts he and Don Lemon exchanged during the investigation into Smollett’s alleged hoax crime, it sounds like Chris Cuomo gave Don Lemon lessons in how to insert oneself into a story while simultaneously reporting it. Actor Jussie Smollett is on trial for his alleged faking of a hate crime attack. Smollett testified under oath Monday,

“…he received a text from the network’s Don Lemon — supposedly relaying information that the CPD didn’t believe his account of what happened.”

Smollett testified during investigation he got a text from Don Lemon — saying CPD didn’t believe him

(smollett talking fast here before an objection. Not verbatim.)

— Matt Finn (@MattFinnFNC) December 6, 2021

If you’ve listened to Don Lemon over the last few years, and his attempts to be an impartial news anchor, it is no secret that he and Smollett exchanged texts after the alleged incident in January 2019. Lemon gushed to the Jada Pinkett-Smith clan in an interview,

“Every day I say, ‘I know you think I’m annoying’ – I can show you a text – ‘I know you think I’m annoying you, but I just want to know that you’re OK, and if you need somebody you can talk to me, ’cause there’s not a lot of us out there,’ ” Lemon recalled. “Sometimes he responds; sometimes he doesn’t. He responds and says, ‘You are not annoying.’ “

When Lemon wasn’t gushing with the Pinkett-Smith girlfriends,

“Lemon told his viewers at the time that the story was ‘personal’ since he and Smollett had been acquaintances and were in constant communication since the alleged incident and that Smollett told Lemon what he said had happened to him, which he admitted raised lots of questions. He stressed that while Smollett is ‘innocent until proven guilty,’ he still ‘squandered the good will of a whole lot of people’ if his story wasn’t true.”

“Constant communication” and “relaying information” from the CPD; this smells an awful lot like Don Lemon, just like Chris Cuomo, was inserting himself into the news and becoming the news for his own aggrandizement instead of reporting the news.

For the sheer schadenfreude of it, let’s take a look back at a CNN clip when Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon put their two talking heads together to give suspected liar, Jussie Smollett, advice. Here’s the irony, we’re finding out now Cuomo and Lemon were lying as much as Smollett–allegedly. Cuomo for certain, the jury is still out on Lemon.

The tweets are excoriating.

Jussie Smollett’s Testimony About Don Lemon Shows What a Dumpster Fire CNN Is https://t.co/KeQZtjAkPC

— Trump’sConscience (@c3t1p99) December 7, 2021

CNN is right back where they were a week ago; wondering what to do with an anchor who breaks the rules. Suspend him? Fire him? Ignore him? Toss the dice.

If CNN’s past is any indicator, and it is, they won’t do a damn thing.

“Reps for CNN and Lemon did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.”

Shocked? CNN is quickly running out of anchors if they can’t get their journalistic scruples in order.

Let’s not forget after the Smollett alleged hoax incident happened, CNN had another train wreck on its hands in its legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, in the fall of 2020. Toobin

“…was fired from The New Yorker on Wednesday after he accidentally exposed himself to colleagues with the New Yorker and WNYC during a Zoom call last month.”

While Toobin lost The New Yorker gig, CNN was cool with the disgusting incident and brought Toobin back months later.

“Toobin returned to the network, where he serves as chief legal analyst, on June 10, after having been put on leave in response to news that he had masturbated on-camera during an October New Yorker video call.”

Does CNN regard itself as a credible news outlet that has standards for conduct and journalism ethics? In the last two and a half years CNN has seen two anchors who have inserted themselves in the news and pretended to report on it. Both Cuomo and Lemon have downplayed their initial involvement only to find out later, their involvement was not impartial.

If CNN needs to analyze the legalities of the Cuomo/Lemon shenanigans, then by all means, let’s call in their in-house Zoom masturbator, legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin. Toobin, known for showing his junk during a Zoom call The New Yorker fired him for but CNN thought it best to keep him on the payroll. CNN is a train wreck and we know how train wrecks end.

At what point does CNN decide to stop being the laughingstock of the news network universe? We’ll find out soon enough when they decide what to do with the mess Don Lemon has made by becoming the subject of sworn testimony of a suspected liar.

Featured image: Chris Cuomo at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, cropped, public domain.
Redlight Traffic’s Inaugural Dignity Gala, via Neon Tommy, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped and combined.