15 August 2021: Heastie Claims "There Was No Deal" Behind Choice to Drop Cuomo Impeachment

"There Was No Deal": Assembly Speaker Defends Decision To Suspend Cuomo Impeachment Probe

This report captures NY Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie reaction to charges that he struck a deal with Andrew M. Cuomo to escape impeachment through resignation. We'll have original commentary after the following excerpts.

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie insisted there was no backroom deal cut with Governor Andrew Cuomo to suspend the impeachment probe in exchange for the governor's resignation effective August 24th.

"There was no deal," Heastie said in an interview with Spectrum News Friday evening. "I've said that 150 times and I'll make that the 151st time."

Legislators speculate a deal was made so that Cuomo can run for office in the future since an impeachment would have resulted in Cuomo no longer being allowed to hold public office in New York state again.

Heastie said the Assembly’s decision to suspend the probe by the Judiciary Committee stemmed from not wanting to interfere with multiple investigations into Cuomo. They include a criminal inquiry by the Albany County Sheriff’s Office into allegations Cuomo groped a female staffer in November last year.

The problem with that claim is that impeachment is not a criminal law enforcement action. It's a political action that may be taken independently and separately from law enforcement investigations.

Heastie also cited constitutional concerns:

There were also constitutionality questions raised by the Assembly's lawyers over whether it can move forward with drafting articles of impeachment after Cuomo resigned, according to Heastie.

"We had our lawyers look at that and they confirmed they did not think that it was likely that we could move forward with articles of impeachment," Heastie said.

Once again, that was a choice. Per his resignation announcment, Andrew M. Cuomo will still be governor until 24 August 2021. The Assembly could have streamlined its impeachment considerations to focus on just one charge for which it has long had ample evidence, and proceeded with it, moving to and completing a trial in the senate within the two weeks Cuomo announced he would remain in office before resigning.

Of course, the Assembly would have been able to move faster with more charges had Cuomo-ally Heastie not previously sabotaged it. Heastie's choices to deliberately slow walk the Assembly's impeachment probe and to sabotage it through scope creep ensured it could never move fast. That's not hindsight - its deficiencies were well recognized by contemporary observers who described Heastie's impeachment probe of Cuomo as a sham from the time it was established.

There never needed to be a deal between Cuomo and Heastie at the end to trade impeachment for resignation. The fix was in from the beginning, by design, ready to go if the heat grew too hot for Cuomo to stay in office.