Greta Van Susteren departs Fox News, effective immediately

'Fox has not felt like home to me for a few years,' the evening talk host wrote on social media.

By Allen Cone and Scott T. Smith

Fox News host Greta Van Susteren announced her immediate departure from Fox News on Tuesday. Photo by Cherie Cullen/DoD

Greta Van Susteren, anchor of Fox News' On the Record since 2002, abruptly left the cable news channel Tuesday.

Senior political analyst Brit Hume will take over Van Susteren's 7 p.m. show starting Tuesday and running through the election, Fox News announced.

"We are grateful for Greta's many contributions over the years and wish her continued success," Fox co-presidents Jack Abernethy and Bill Shine said in a statement about the 62-year-old Van Susteren.

The last show for Van Susteren, who joined Fox from CNN in 2002, was Thursday. Her bio was removed from the network's website Tuesday and her departure was aired on the news channel as a brief "programming note."

No reasons were given for Van Susteren's departure in the announcement, but Van Susteren posted on Facebook mid-day Tuesday that "Fox has not felt like home to me for a few years and I took advantage of the clause in my contract which allows me to leave now."

Van Susteren replied in that post's comments section that she didn't know where she would end up.

"Where will you find me? I don't know....I hope some place. I have not contacted any other networks to see if they might be interested," she wrote.

Van Susteren also responded to numerous well-wishers on her Twitter account, including CNN's Anderson Cooper, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and Fox News' Geraldo Rivera.

Fox's Howard Kurtz reported that she had asked to renegotiate her contract when Fox News CEO Roger Ailes left after a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by former anchor Gretchen Carlson, who reached a $20 million settlement with 20th Century Fox, the channel's parent company, on Tuesday morning.

Van Susteren chose to invoke the departure option, sources told Kurtz. She and other Fox personnel have a "key man" clause allowing her to leave if Ailes departed.

In July, Van Susteren told The Daily Beast she would be happy returning to teaching or law if she loses that contract. Van Sustern said she didn't believe Ailes sexually harrassed Carlson.

The Georgetown Law Center graduate joined CNN full time in 1991 as a legal analyst.

The Fox News statement said Hume is "the ideal choice to host a nightly political program while the most dynamic and captivating election in recent history unfolds."

Hume, 73, spent 12 years as the Washington, D.C., managing editor of the Fox News Channel and the anchor of Special Report with Brit Hume until 2008 when he became the senior political analyst for the network and panelist for the television program Fox News Sunday.

Hume said he is "happy to take on this assignment for the balance of this extraordinary election. My Fox News colleagues have set a high standard for political coverage which I'll do my best to uphold. I'm honored to be asked."