12 January 2022: Cuomo Lawyer Thumps Chest Before JCOPE

Cuomo lawyer fires warning at ethics agency

This report indicates that Andrew M. Cuomo's lawyers are engaged in some pretty standard legal chest-thumping behavior. Here's the introduction:

An attorney representing former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo notified New York's ethics oversight panel that it's to preserve "all evidence and documentation" concerning its efforts force Cuomo to repay $5.1 million in proceeds from a 2020 book deal.

The letter from Cuomo's attorney, James McGuire, appears to be a warning shot to the Joint Commission on Public Ethics: If the panel continues attempts to force Cuomo to repay the funds he earned from writing "American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic," Cuomo will sue. And Cuomo will seek to dig extensively into the panel's own machinations, including interactions between commissioners and their appointing authorities: Legislative leaders and Gov. Kathy Hochul.

The letter, addressed to JCOPE chairman Jose Nieves, also seeks records relating to JCOPE's two failed votes on resolutions to revoke approval of the book deal, its third, successful vote doing so in November.

And the attorney for Cuomo – who once irately called Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie about how his commissioners had voted in a confidential executive session – argues JCOPE violated confidentiality provisions by publicly releasing the resolutions.

The last paragraph refers to a 2019 incident in which Cuomo called Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, where information about the commission's confidential vote in another matter had been leaked to Cuomo. (Although it is fun to consider, the paragraph does not refer to irate calls on the part of Cuomo's attorney, who was presumably engaged at the time in chest-thumping exercises elsewhere).