14 September 2021: NY Atty General Slams JCOPE Investigation of Leak as Travesty, But Won't Probe Leak (For Now)

Attorney general declines to investigate JCOPE leak to Cuomo

The state attorney general's office late Monday informed the Joint Commission on Public Ethics that it will not investigate the leak of confidential information to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in 2019.

Attorney General Letitia James, though, called JCOPE's process of investigating the leak a "travesty" in her letter to JCOPE.

"It truly is unacceptable as a matter of public policy," James said.

The reasons Letitia James refused to probe the leak comes down to technicalities built into the law governing JCOPE, but seems much like a political choice to kick the can for the leak investigation down the road:

Gary J. Lavine, a JCOPE commissioner who has pressed the panel to find an outside agency to investigate the leak, told the Times Union that the attorney general's office contends the commission's Aug. 26 vote asking for the investigation was invalid because Cuomo was a statewide elected official and that it requires at least two of his Democratic nominees on the commission to also vote in favor of the motion....

It's unclear whether the attorney general's letter declining the request to conduct a new investigation cites a valid reason for doing so. The attorney general's letter said it needs the commission to conduct a "substantial basis vote," which would require at least two of Cuomo's three Democratic appointees to JCOPE to vote in favor. But two of those positions are currently vacant.

A late breaking development may however put it back onto the state attorney general's agenda, which came before JCOPE's commissioners were set to meet on Tuesday, 14 August 2021:

Right before the meeting was scheduled to begin, and following the initial publication of this story by the Times Union, Hochul's office announced two appointments to JCOPE: attorney James E. Dering, as the new chair, and prior Suffolk County District Administrative Judge, C. Randall Hinrichs.

We think it's possible James is setting the bar for probing JCOPE's 2019 leak to Andrew M. Cuomo as high as she is to ensure the replacement NY Governor Hochul's appointees and by extension, Hochul herself, are genuinely on board with it. In that sense, her action would be a way for James to test the water to see if any new probe her office takes on into Andrew M. Cuomo is supported by the new governor.