14 December 2021: JCOPE Votes to Claw Back Cuomo's Pandemic "Leadership" Book Deal Millions

State ethics panel orders Cuomo to repay $5M from book deal

New York's Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) became functional enough to order Andrew M. Cuomo to claw back the millions of guaranteed income he has begun receiving for his COVID pandemic "leadership" book under the terms of the contract he signed with its publisher.

New York’s ethics commission issued an order Tuesday demanding former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo repay the $5.1 million he was paid by a publisher to write the book “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.”

At the meeting of the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, Commissioner David McNamara put forward the motion issuing the order, which passed by a vote of 12 to 1. An attorney for Cuomo immediately promised to fight JCOPE’s action in court, setting up what could be a heated, years-long legal battle.

“JCOPE’s actions today are unconstitutional, exceed its own authority and appear to be driven by political interests rather than the facts and the law," attorney Jim McGuire said in a statement. “Should they seek to enforce this action, we’ll see them in court.”

In making his motion, McNamara noted JCOPE commissioners had in November rescinded its staff's previous approval for Cuomo to write the book, and argued that he now "lacked legal authority to engage" in the outside activity.

The JCOPE order demands Cuomo repay the proceeds earned from the book within 30 days. Its language leaves enforcement of the order to the state attorney general’s office, which will also be the entity to determine whether any money recovered would go to the state treasury — and thus back to taxpayers — or be repaid to the book’s publisher, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House.

The jury is out on whether JCOPE is actually capable of clawing back Cuomo's millions, where that question will be settled in legal proceedings.