31 July 2021: A Cuomo-Sympathetic View of the Cuomo Scandals

The Andrew Cuomo Scandal Circus Is About to Hit High Gear

This Vanity Fair article doesn't break any news, but does provide some interesting context for this snapshot in time for the Cuomo scandals, which features the author's sympathetic take favoring Andrew M. Cuomo:

New York governor Eliot Spitzer: seven days from sex scandal breaking to resignation. New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman: one day from sex scandal breaking to resignation. New York governor Andrew Cuomo: five months and six days since sex scandal allegations…and still in office.

There are a multitude of differences in the substance and circumstances of the three cases. But the central contrast—that Cuomo remains in his job—is the important one, and all the more remarkable considering that multiple accusations of sexual harassment are hardly the only battle the current governor is fighting: Cuomo is also being investigated for allegedly juggling the number of pandemic nursing home deaths and for having state employees help him write a pandemic “leadership” book for which he will reportedly receive $5.1 million. (He has denied all wrongdoing in all cases.) The combination of crises provoked a glut of high-profile stories detailing Cuomo’s nasty side; his public approval numbers sank from 71% in spring 2020 to 38% in early March 2021.

And here we are at the end of July, with Cuomo still in power. That, all by itself, is a big win for the governor. A key part of his strategy last spring, when he was taking a media and political beating and calls for his resignation were piling up, was to appear to be focusing on his public duties, to play for time, and to allow the scandals’ momentum to fade. Which has worked, in the short run. His daily pandemic press conferences stockpiled public goodwill, and Cuomo’s base—older, more conservative, and more forgiving on workplace issues than New York’s progressive Democratic wing—has largely stuck with him.

Now, though, a turning point looms. State Attorney General Letitia James has been probing the sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo since early March, and last week the governor reportedly sat for a deposition—a clear sign that the investigation is nearing its end. There’s also the fact that Joon Kim and Anne Clark, the outside attorneys hired by James to conduct the probe, are on a contract that ends September 7. Extensions and delays are always possible, of course. But Cuomo’s camp is acting a bit twitchy, a sign that it thinks the end is in sight. When the Times broke the news Cuomo was about to testify, his spokesman, Richard Azzopardi, blasted the report, taking a shot at James’s objectivity and insinuating that James, a fellow Democrat, is gunning to become governor herself: “the continued leaks are more evidence of the transparent political motivation of the attorney general’s review.”

Anyone in Cuomo’s inner circle decrying politics is pretty funny, given that the governor does nothing without calculation. His attempt to paint James’s investigation as politically compromised, however, got an assist from James herself: Kim previously worked as a top deputy to former U.S. attorney Preet Bharara, a longtime Cuomo nemesis. “Joon is very good, and he will follow the facts,” a New York prosecutorial veteran says. “But Tish could have chosen another capable lawyer and deprived Cuomo of this critique. Bringing Joon on board handed him this opening to claim political bias".

The author, Chris Smith, proceeds to quote an anonymous "New York prosecutorial veteran" who faults James for hiring Joon: "... Tish could have chosen another capable lawyer and deprived Cuomo of this critique. Bringing Joon on board handed him this opening to claim political bias." Smith then proceeds to change the topic, failing to offer any evidence to support the claim that Bharara's alleged political bias applies to former employee Joon.

If you've ever worked in a job where your boss had different political opinions than you, you already know how weak that sauce is. Smith's choice to present the claim without any supporting evidence follows the example of Team Cuomo's smear merchants, and indeed, of Andrew M. Cuomo himself.

It's an oddly Cuomo-sympathetic note in a piece that otherwise doesn't offer much new to say other than the presentation of the context of the sexual harassment allegations that brought down the careers of other high ranking New York officials.