2 December 2021: How Cuomo "Ethics" Czar Linda Lacewell Rigged the System

Lacewell: Inspector general can't investigate governor, secretary

This report helps explain why neither resigned-in-disgrace Governor Andrew M. Cuomo nor Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa were investigated by the appointed Inspector General, despite repeated requests. It describes how Cuomo advisor Linda Lacewell developed a creative interpretation of the law to shield the governor and his top aide for any misconduct on their part.

Linda Lacewell, a longtime top aide to Cuomo, offered an opinion that may provide some explanation when she testified in the attorney general's investigation of the former governor. According to Lacewell, the inspector general is legally prohibited from investigating not only the governor, but also the secretary to the governor — a top position in state government.

“The inspector general investigates allegations against all employees, including those of the Executive Chamber, but not against the secretary and not against the governor,” Lacewell said in her testimony. “That would be a conflict of interest.”

In fact, Lacewell — an attorney who was long Cuomo’s point person on ethics issues — expressed the sweeping view that any investigative official appointed by the governor carried an inherent conflict of interest that would prohibit them and perhaps even their office from investigating a governor.

That creative interpretation of the law was used by the Cuomo administration to shield Cuomo from inquiries related to the leak of confidential information to Cuomo related to proceedings at the Joint Commisson on Public Ethics in 2019:

During Cuomo’s tenure as governor, the inspector general’s office failed to interview key witnesses — including Cuomo — before concluding it could not determine whether someone within New York’s ethics commission illegally leaked information that was shared with Cuomo. In that 2019 investigation, Inspector General Letitzia Tagliafierro recused herself, citing her former job leading the ethics commission as the reason and not that she was appointed by Cuomo. The investigation, which focused on the Joint Commission on Public Ethics but not the governor, was led by her deputy, Spencer Freedman, who like Tagliafierro was a former Cuomo aide.

In explaining why Cuomo was not interviewed, the inspector general's office argued that no one outside the ethics commission was subject to possible criminal liability, although in other cases involving the less powerful, the office routinely interviews witnesses who do not face legal liability.

In other words, Cuomo administration staffers like Lacewell rigged the system to protect Cuomo, which then enabled Cuomo and other staffers to engage in much higher levels of misconduct than would otherwise have occurred had they not done so.