New York State Legal professional Normal Letitia James has been given the authorization to maneuver ahead on an impartial investigation into two former staffers’ sexual harassment claims towards Governor Andrew Cuomo.
James has obtained the letter from the governor’s workplace that she wanted to open an impartial investigation into Cuomo’s alleged sexual harassment, her workplace revealed on Monday. Cuomo is not going to obtain weekly updates on the probe; nevertheless, the investigation’s findings will likely be made public at its conclusion.
Cuomo’s workplace had beforehand known as on James to “choose a professional non-public lawyer to do an impartial evaluate of allegations of sexual harassment” on Sunday, the newest of a number of requests which have been turned down by the AG’s workplace. Nonetheless, whereas James pointed to state regulation permitting her workplace to carry out the investigation, she additionally pledged by way of Twitter to “rent a regulation agency, deputize them as attorneys of our workplace, and oversee a rigorous and impartial investigation.”
We count on to obtain a referral with subpoena energy to analyze allegations of sexual harassment towards the governor, consistent with our calls for and New York state regulation. The referral can be made solely to the legal professional normal’s workplace.
— NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) February 28, 2021
A second former aide got here ahead over the weekend to accuse Cuomo of harassment, noting he had requested her probing questions on whether or not she had ever “been with an older man” (she was 25 on the time, whereas Cuomo was 63) amongst different unwelcome sexual feedback. Fellow former Cuomo aide Lindsey Boylan got here ahead in December solely to be largely ignored – till revealing final month that the governor had kissed her with out her consent, jokingly recommended a sport of strip poker, and repeatedly referred to her by the title of his ex-girlfriend.
Different odd remarks – reminiscent of Cuomo’s caught-on-film insistence {that a} feminine reporter “eat the entire sausage” that he’d purchased for her, complaining “there’s an excessive amount of sausage in that image” and in any other case making what may very well be interpreted as crude sexual innuendos – had been dismissed as mere banter by each events. Cuomo, maintaining in character, has averted apologizing, as a substitute taking part in the ‘sorry not sorry’ card of apologizing for others who mistakenly felt uncomfortable at his “teasing” and “being playful.”
The sexual harassment scandal comes on the heels of revelations that Cuomo’s workplace hid the extent of the coronavirus epidemic raging within the state’s nursing houses, utilizing some inventive accounting to reclassify 1000’s of nursing residence deaths as hospital deaths. Regardless of Cuomo’s bullying and intimidation ways – extensively uncovered by everybody from Boylan to New York Metropolis Mayor Invoice de Blasio – a bipartisan group of lawmakers was already calling for his resignation earlier than Bennett got here ahead along with her harassment claims. The FBI has additionally gotten concerned, although no prices have but been filed concerning the nursing residence problem.
Cuomo’s scandals are hitting the governor in his pockets, as properly, with main backers of the three-term governor all of the sudden getting chilly toes about persevering with help to the incumbent. One monetary govt who declined to be named advised CNBC that “nobody is giving to him now. All the things is on maintain.” Even the Biden White Home and Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi have voiced help for an impartial investigation into the Cuomo allegations, mere months after embracing the governor because the antithesis of then-president Donald Trump. The governor even gained an Emmy for his coronavirus briefings.
The tide seems to have turned concerning his favorability, nevertheless. Whereas Cuomo has many well-heeled donor buddies, he has by no means been standard amongst working-class New Yorkers or the progressive wing of the Democratic Celebration, who’ve dubbed him “Governor One P.c” for his slavish devotion to the state’s rich inhabitants. Now that these inhabitants have both fled the state totally resulting from his draconian lockdown laws or have shut off the money spigot because of the harassment points, his reelection in 2022 seems to be so much much less sure.
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