New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s tax returns he released on Monday show he sold the rights to his COVID memoir for over $5 million.
$5 million for a book that only sold around 50,000 copies.
American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic came out in mid-October with the virus still going strong in the state.
Crown Publishing gave Cuomo the contract despite investigations into his nursing home mandate at the beginning of the pandemic.
Then we learned Cuomo’s aides kept fudging the nursing home death numbers while he wrote this masterpiece.
The publisher paid Cuomo $3.12 million in 2020. It will give him “an additional $2 million” in the next few years:
Cuomo’s financial records indicate that after taxes and expenses, his net gain from that initial payment of $3.12 million was $1.54 million. He has since donated $500,000 to the United Way of New York State to help with pandemic “recovery and vaccination efforts.”The remaining $1 million and change has been placed in a trust for his three daughters. They gave him “the strength and love to make it through the crisis every day,” Cuomo adviser Rich Azzopardi said in a statement.
Crown Publishing announced in March it would stop promoting Cuomo’s book due to the scandals:
Sales of the book, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic,” had already slowed severely as the governor found himself embroiled in overlapping crises of his own making, including a drumbeat of accusations about his inappropriate behavior toward younger women and his aides’ manipulation of nursing home data.Gillian Blake of Crown Publishing Group said in response to an email from The New York Times that there were “no plans” to reprint Mr. Cuomo’s book or to reissue it in paperback, citing “the ongoing investigation into N.Y.S. reporting of Covid-related fatalities in nursing homes.”
Do not forget the nine women who accused Cuomo of sexual harassment. Do not forget that Cuomo mansplained the harassment definition to a female reporter.
New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli gave Attorney General Tish James permission to investigate the book deal:
But it’s now Cuomo’s outside income that has come under widespread scrutiny. State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli has given Attorney General Tish James the authority to investigate allegations about the book deal, including the possibility that he used taxpayer resources to write it. The book deal is also one of the many subjects being examined by the Assembly’s Judiciary Committee as it decides whether an attempt to impeach Cuomo is warranted, and it seems the Joint Commission on Public Ethics may have taken an interest in investigating it.In addition to the book money, Cuomo reported about $218,000 in earnings from his day job in 2020. He also reported $428,429 in capital gains, largely from his blind trust with AMG National Trust Bank.He paid a total of $1.24 million in federal taxes and $303,300 in state taxes.
Cuomo faces more criticism from people on the left and right, including legislators who want him to resign and accused him of sexual harassment. Fox News’s Janice Dean pointed out the Son of Sam law.
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