Cuomo’s Defense Crumbling: NY AG Wants Referral to Investigate Sexual Harassment Allegations
These allegations are serious and horrific. But please do not forget the elderly who died in nursing homes by themselves because of Cuomo’s nursing home order.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s defense is crumbling around him. It all started with the damning report on the nursing home deaths and his secretary admitting they fudged the death numbers.
Then two former aides accused him of sexual harassment: Charlotte Bennett and Lindsey Boylan. Investigative journalist Lindsay Nielsen also described intimidation efforts by Cuomo’s administration.
These sexual harassment and intimidation allegations are horrific. However, we must not forget those who died because of Cuomo’s awful nursing home order. They died due to his reckless behavior. They died alone. Then he lied about it. He keeps lying about it.
My In-Laws Died in a Nursing Home. I Took on Cuomo in Their Names | Opinion https://t.co/sxQ6zZCXMu
— Janice Dean (@JaniceDean) February 24, 2021
Accusers
We covered Lindsey Boylan twice. She made the accusations in December and repeated them last week in a post on Medium.
Charlotte Bennett came out this weekend along with Lindsey Nielsen.
I have something to say today. pic.twitter.com/qz0EkC5cD5
— Lindsay Nielsen (@Lindsayon10) February 28, 2021
Cuomo’s Statement
This is how Cuomo responded:
“Questions have been raised about some of my past interactions with people in the office,” Cuomo began in a press release on Sunday. “I never intended to offend anyone or cause any harm. I spend most of my life at work and colleagues are often also personal friends.”
“At work sometimes I think I am being playful and make jokes that I think are funny. I do, on occasion, tease people in what I think is a good-natured way,” the governor explained. “I do it in public and in private. You have seen me do it at briefings hundreds of times. I have teased people about their personal lives, their relationships, about getting married or not getting married. I mean no offense and only attempt to add some levity and banter to what is a very serious business.”
Cuomo continued, “I now understand that my interactions may have been insensitive or too personal and that some of my comments, given my position, made others feel in ways I never intended. I acknowledge some of the things I have said have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation. To the extent anyone felt that way, I am truly sorry about that.”
Cuomo denied he touched or propositioned anyone for sex. He also slammed officials who allegedly “reached out to Ms. Bennett to express displeasure about her coming forward.”
AG Leticia James
New York Attorney General Letitia James spent Sunday going back-and-forth with Cuomo.
“The Governor’s office wants a thorough and independent review that is above reproach and beyond political interference,” announced Cuomo’s office. “Therefore the Governor’s office has asked Attorney General Tish James to select a qualified private lawyer to do an independent review of allegations of sexual harassment. The Governor’s office will voluntarily cooperate fully.”
James said no and did not accept Cuomo’s statement:
“To clarify, I do not accept the governor’s proposal,” James said in a statement. “The state’s Executive Law clearly gives my office the authority to investigate this matter once the governor provides a referral.”
The statement on the governor’s proposal came after she asked Cuomo’s office to issue a referral authorizing an independent investigation into the allegations, citing state law. Cuomo’s office issued a response saying Cuomo will “leave all decisions concerning the investigation to be made in the discretion of the independent counsel selected by the Attorney General” and Janet DiFiore, the chief judge of New York’s Court of Appeals, who was appointed by Cuomo.
“While I have deep respect for Chief Judge DiFiore, I am the duly elected attorney general and it is my responsibility to carry out this task, per Executive Law,” James said. “The governor must provide this referral so an independent investigation with subpoena power can be conducted.”
Given state law, this can only be accomplished through an official referral from the governor’s office and must include subpoena power.
I urge the governor to make this referral immediately.
— NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) February 28, 2021
New York Lawmakers
Democrat State Sen. Todd Kaminsky wants to “introduce legislation eliminating the need for James’ office to obtain a referral to begin an investigation.” Sen. Liz Krueger, also a Democrat, wants similar legislation.
The NY Attorney General should not need a referral to begin a criminal investigation. This is an issue I have been working on for some time, and will be introducing legislation tomorrow. https://t.co/jxhYtIq5zP
— Todd Kaminsky (@toddkaminsky) February 28, 2021
The Governor must refer the allegations of sexual harassment to the Attorney General, who should have full authority, with subpoena power and with no caveats. If he does not, I call for the Legislature to immediately pass a law giving the Attorney General such authority.
— Senator Liz Krueger (@LizKrueger) February 28, 2021
Assemblyman Mike Lawler shared his legislation on Twitter, which would “amend Section 63 of the exec law.”
This action would give James “the authority to investigate all allegations of sexual harassment or assault by any state official, legislator, or employee.”
Lawler asked Krueger and Sen. Alessandra Biaggi to sponsor it in the senate.
Tomorrow, I’m introducing legislation to amend Section 63 of the exec law to give @TishJames the authority to investigate all allegations of sexual harassment or assault by any state official, legislator, or employee. @LizKrueger or @Biaggi4NY will you sponsor in the Senate? pic.twitter.com/qxUgmVBXgd
— Assemblyman Mike Lawler (@lawler4ny) February 28, 2021
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Comments
so the left has decided that Cuomo is no longer useful. Wait until they decide that about Biden.
Welcome to the ONE PARTY STATE.
Remember how untouchable the leaders were in the USSR ? If the politburo decided to disappear someone – all photos and documentation related to that person would be erased like they never existed. Some comrades in the Woke Progressive politburo want to end Cuomo. The comrades are obviously applying these USSR techniques along with media propaganda techniques. Interestingly, what triggered it was not the killing of 15,000 elderly but rather a Woke infraction.
Ironically, all these years Cuomo never said a word against political correctness as it tore through society. Language police and thought police. Now he complains that people took his “joking” the wrong way. No one will feel sorry for him.
Unfortunately, this will not end the Wokeness and the Marxists will be further emboldened by the exercise of power over the powerful – even if it is their own. Someday we may be telling our grand kids what it was like to live in a free society. Today government has power unheard of in the history of mankind. That kind of power is highly corrupting and easily abused – not only by Dems – by both Parties.
They already decided. They’re just working on harris. Her days are numbered.
Harris has gotton cocky and has made the mistake of believing her own press. Her being ‘furious’ at being excluded from biden/rice’s decion to bomb syria sealed her fate.
So, thousands of New York Seniors were sacrificed because Cuomo sent Covid Infected among the state’s most vulnerable because he did not want to use the Field Hospitals or the Hospital Ship that Trump provided. But, Cuomo skates.
Now, he is going down for unwanted advances and stupid comments about wanting to see a woman eat a sausage?
Woke Stupid.
Killing grandma was fine with these people, grabbing asses is where they draw the line… Eventually. When it’s time to make them be gone.
Andy, it’s none of those things. There is an opportunity to get rid of cuomo and replace him with a kamala harris-type useful idiot. It’s now, given the killings. All the rest is just b.s. heaped on.
Cuomo is done. Win-win. Or is it? What corrupt communist will they try and slip in?
Actually, they don’t care about grabbing asses either. It’s a matter that Cuomo is no longer an asset, and the party wants him out of the picture. They don’t want to scuttle him over a matter of policy that they support, so they invent something personal to use against him.
While I agree that Cuomo should be investigated for these allegations, I also have to wonder the “why” these allegations are being played up so much.
First, the NY nursing home death reporting cover up started to make more news, so the MSM switched to Cruz’s trip to Mexico for a few news cycles.
However, more news about the deaths might result in stories about the other governors (Ds, of course) doing the same executive orders. So, we now have the harassments take over the news cycle.
Red State has an interesting article about the changes in news cycles.
https://redstate.com/michael_thau/2021/03/01/trap-how-cuomos-sexual-harassment-scandal-is-helping-the-democrats-n334985
was thinking the same thing
Since the Joseph Goebbels media NEVER reports bad news if it could politically damage Communists, I have to wonder why Cuomo and Newsom are suddenly getting hammered. What is really going on here?
Personally I am growing more skeptical of Lindsey Boylan. She ran against Jerry Nadler in 2020 for the Communist Party’s nomination for the 10th Congressional District in NY (she got crushed and I am not talking about Nadler’s mass!) and is currently competing for Manhattan Borough President. How convenient for her campaign if she gets the ascendant Khmer Rouge wing of the Party to unite behind her as a “victim”!
As far as replacing Biden, unless he has a stroke or something right in front of thousands of people or he just plain cannot function in front of anyone anywhere, he will not be stepping down.
The Biden “people” are completely separate from the Harris “people”. The Biden people are having a field day running things with no interference from Biden and will not willingly give that up. It is in the nature of power. As we saw recently Biden is slipping and slipping fast but he will be kept hidden and issue statements and be seen signing things but all of this is set up by others who are wielding the real presidential power. Biden most of the time wonders “What are we doing here?” The Biden people will not willingly give this up just because they don’t want to hurt poor Joe. They don’t care a whit about Joe. Harris’s people are chomping at the bit to do this too. They know that Harris isn’t near smart or capable enough to do it either. They’re being shut out by Biden’s people. When it becomes more and more obvious to the casual observer that Joe has gone far far around the bend, the real fireworks will start between the two peoples.
Sadly none of this has even the slightest relationship to the people of this country.
Harris has no ‘people’. She is held captive by goldeb handcuffs and her limited abilities – and her past shady ‘real estate’ deals (shades of hillary clinton and valerie jarrett).
Peloso will become president in 2021.
I really want to know what Cuomo did to have all these cards played at once.
Andy “Killer” Cuomo became a liability to the democrats and the democrat party leadership. Added to that he is simply no longer needed so the democrats must come up with some pre-text to purge him from the party before he becomes a real embarrassment to the party. (Or at least more of an embarrassment than he already is.)
I wonder though, will he be forced to return his Emmy™ Award? Inquiring minds want to know.
Or his advance & royalties from his book about his fantastic handling of the COVID crisis. LOL
I also want to know when the MSM will be taken to task for their hero worship and cover fire for this guy prior to this year. I won’t hold my breath, though.
While I’m as happy as anyone to see Mr. Cuomo get what he so obviously deserves, New York should not change the law so as to allow the attorney general to initiate an investigation without a referral. The requirement for a referral is a check on what would otherwise be a near-unfettered ability to conduct witch hunts. No AG should have that power.
So the AG can’t investigate? Fine, we can have a few more delightful news cycles until the governor decides to resign in abject shame. Works for me.
Is this the same AG investigating Trumps tax returns looking for a crime?
She is investigating Trump looking for something to charge him with, but she’s not the one who subpoenaed the tax returns. That would by Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan DA.
The NY AG is more worried about the head of the NRA buting suits than a few thousand deaths or sexual misconduct.
In the long view, who benefits most from a change in the law to allow the AG to investigate without a referral? Why demonrats of course. How much do you want to bet their internal polls show Republicans winning the Governor’s office?
They don’t sound all that serious or horrific to me. They mostly consist not of Cuomo’s actual words and actions but of how the accuser felt about those things, which is a perverse and evil standard to hold anyone to. Nobody is in control of other people’s feelings, or can be held responsible for them. The nursing home deaths, on the other hand, are squarely his responsibility.
#MeToo is garbage so so are the accusations against Cuomo. It’s a mistake to rejoice about it because it just accepts the mind-changing for advantage that goes on now.
If there’s no police report at the time, it didn’t happen. A police report is a pretty trustworthy indication of single-mindedness about the matter.
The woman gets something out of it and later changes her mind, is not a good standard.
Yes, but it’s not too much to hope that Cuomo goes scorched earth and does damage on his way down.
The tipping point was the assistant who admitted on an open call that Cuomo and the admin obstructed justice by withholding info to prevent a federal investigation. That was so blatant that it couldn’t be ignored. The sexual harrassment stuff now is to change the subject.
They’ll force Cuomo out and drop the investigation into the deaths by saying its old news. The Democrats went out on a limb praising Cuomo’s handling of Covid. They will gladly sacrifice him over sexual harassment charges to take the nursing home deaths off the front page.
Mike Pence didn’t decline to meet with women privately out of respect for women.
Mike Pence?
Who is that?
There’s more to this than the left ditching cuomo to get a leftist freak in his place: it’s to create terror among every straight male in the United States who has ever flirted with a woman. That means all of us.
Cuomo should be taken out and hanged, but for mass murder, not for this b.s. #metoo crap.
Personally, I’m more than happy to see Cuomo hung by any means, and especially happy to see the left eat its own.
In addition to being a murderer, Cuomo is an ugly scumbag that used his position to push women into sex. I’m more than happy to see the SOB pay in whatever way possible.
Drawn and quartered beats hanging any day. The perp is hanging by the neck in gentle way and has his guts pulled out and grilled as he smells and watches.
You’re speaking in a figurative sense no doubt.
Otherwise those actions would be wrong-wrong-WRONG, and all of us here are (in theory) “better than that”. (Right? ? )
Don’t get too excited, remember, this is New York. Should they replace this dung heap it will likely be with an even bigger dung heap.
It’s the perfect storm for the NY Dems. The ass grabbing will be reason enough to squeeze the (formerly) Teflon Don of the Cuomo Crime Family into resigning the Guvship ala “Client Number 9”. Meanwhile the Cuomo Negligent Nursing Home Manslaughter case gets forgotten.