JUST IN: CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr Leaving CNN After 21 Years

CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr has told her colleagues that she will be leaving the network after 21 years.

“@barbarastarrcnn has announced to colleagues that she will be leaving CNN in the coming days after her contract expires: ‘I have made the decision to move on,’” tweeted CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy.

Starr’s upcoming exit comes amid staff cuts at CNN since CEO Chris Licht took over earlier this year.

Starr joined CNN from ABC News, where she was for a few years as a Pentagon producer. Before then, she worked as Washington bureau chief for London-based weekly newsmagazine Jane’s Defence Weekly and was an energy correspondent at Business Week.

At CNN, she has reported not only from the Pentagon, but also from Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and the Horn of Africa.

In 2021, Starr made headlines over confrontations with senior Pentagon officials. In August of that year, Starr pressed then-Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby over there not being a known number of Americans who had been evacuated from Afghanistan amid the withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces from the country after almost two decades of war there.

The Trump Department of Justice allegedly secretly obtained Starr’s email and phone records in 2020.

It is not publicly known what Starr’s next career step will be.