23 December 2021: NY Atty General Accused of Stalling Clawback of Cuomo Book Deal Millions

‘Deliberate stall’: Ethics commish rips AG on $5M Cuomo COVID book clawback

Earlier this week, a discussion took place between members of New York's Joint Commission on Public Ethics and the state attorney general's office on the topic of whether the AG's office could pursue the clawback of the $5.2 million income Andrew M. Cuomo was guaranteed for his pandemic "leadership" book deal. This report is the first to indicate whatever transpired in that conference call did not go well:

Attorney General Letitia James is deliberately stalling on whether or not she’ll claw back the $5.1 million book profits from disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a top state ethics official charges.

Joint Commission on Public Ethics Commissioner Gary Lavine blasted James for her swift denial of an order last week that gave her office the authority to recoup Cuomo’s payday for the memoir ‘American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.’

“It’s a deliberate stall by James. It’s a political decision, ” Lavine told The Post Wednesday.

“The attorney general does not want to take action with respect to recovering the money,” he alleged.

JCOPE will do what it does the most, and try again:

Sources also said a group of JCOPE commissioners, as well as Chairman Jose Nieves and Executive Director Sanford Berland, met during an informal conference call on Monday to discuss next steps.

They will send a response letter to James’ office later this week, arguing her denial was made in error.

The article quotes another source who describes JCOPE's legal argument:

“The AG’s letter states a couple of different positions that are legally incorrect,” a JCOPE source close to the deliberations who requested anonymity told The Post.

The source said state law doesn’t say JCOPE must conduct an investigation, only that it has the option to – contrary to James’ position.

“With respect to the disgorgement…they’re misconstruing what’s going on here. This is not a collection action impacting the state treasury. This is an order compelling the former governor to perform an act – that act being to return the funds to the publisher. It’s not a collection proceeding.

“It’s not money the state paid out and the state is entitled to retain – it’s merely depriving the former governor the benefit of outside activity for which he obtained without approval,” the source said.

That latter part was not clear from previous reporting, which had suggested the AG's office could direct Cuomo to pay $5.2 million to New York's state treasury or to return the money to the publisher, so we'll see how that plays out.

2022 is going to be a busy year for legal developments in Andrew M. Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals, of which the resigned-in-disgrace Cuomo's pandemic "leadership" book deal is an integral part.