25 July 2021: CNN's Chris Cuomo Involved in Sexual Misconduct Scandal?

Cuomo accuser Lindsey Boylan slams Chris Cuomo, asks whether he 'also harassed and assaulted' women

This report falls into the interesting sidebar category among Andrew M. Cuomo's multiple scandals. The story involves Lindsay Boylan's remarks on Twitter calling out CNN's Chris Cuomo. Boylan was the first woman to come forward to accuse Andrew M. Cuomo of sexual harassment back in December 2020. CNN's Chris Cuomo is Andrew M. Cuomo's brother, who has often functioned as his brother's Cheerleader-in-Chief at CNN, taking down the news network's journalistic credibility with his extraordinarily biased coverage and his role in advising Governor Cuomo how to handle the news media as it covers his multiple scandals.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo accuser Lindsey Boylan slammed CNN anchor Chris Cuomo Saturday for using "absolutely all his power" to "smear" and "destroy" her and questioned whether it was because he had also harassed and assaulted women....

Boylan, 36, a former aide to Gov. Cuomo, was the first accuser to go public with accusations that he had sexually harassed her. She is also running as a candidate to be borough president of Manhattan in New York City.

Boylan's tweet came shortly after the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division announced it would not launch investigations into nursing homes in New York and other states whose governors forced facilities to admit COVID-19 patients despite their vulnerable populations.

Following Boylan's and other's accusations, in May, Chris Cuomo was forced to address a stunning report from The Washington Post that revealed he participated in strategy sessions with Gov. Cuomo. The "Cuomo Prime Time" host admitted it was a "mistake" to participate in the calls, and offered an apology to his CNN colleagues for putting them in a "bad spot."...

Last year, Cuomo was also heard denying apparent sexual misconduct allegations on a secretly recorded audiotape amid a conversation with former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.

Here's Boylan's 23 July 2021 tweet calling out CNN's Chris Cuomo:

Precursor: @ChrisCuomo used all his power, absolutely all his power (@cnn 😉), to smear & try to destroy me. (In ways you haven’t heard). Sad.

Curious minds would ask: is it bc he loves his brother or bc he also harassed & assaulted women.

I’m not curious. I already know. pic.twitter.com/Dchm9AliJh

— Lindsey Boylan (@LindseyBoylan) July 24, 2021

At this writing, there's very little information in the news media regarding any particular alleged sexual misconduct incidents involving CNN's Chris Cuomo. The article linked in the report above is to a September 2020 piece that references an internal investigation undertaken by news network ABC when Chris Cuomo was employed there, but doesn't provide much detail on any specific allegations.

Right now, your guess is as good as ours for whether anything comes from Boylan's tweet. We're presenting it as a sidebar item in the timeline because it provides context for Andrew M. Cuomo's larger scandals.

9 June 2021: Former Aide Worked Secretly as Cuomo Lawyer on Scandals

Cohen an attorney for Cuomo during Boylan issues

Steven M. Cohen is a former secretary to Governor Cuomo who has been appointed by the governor to be a commissioner to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. At his confirmation hearing in New York's state senate, his previously secret role in providing legal advice to Governor Cuomo during his multiple scandals came to light:

Steven M. Cohen, a longtime confidant and advisor to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, said he was working as an attorney for the governor’s administration during the time when there were internal discussions about leaking the personnel file of former staffer Lindsey Boylan, who accused the governor of sexual harassment in December.

Cohen avoided detailing the nature and scope of any legal advice he provided Cuomo during that time, but he told the state Senate Finance Committee this week that he was serving as an attorney for the governor on a voluntary basis.

“I suspect that if I got into too much detail here, I’d probably be waiving an attorney-client privilege,” Cohen told the committee that was questioning him about his nomination by Cuomo to serve as a board member to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The committee later approved Cohen's nomination for the influential Port Authority position.

The report describes some of that role:

Cohen authored a lengthy statement on behalf of the governor in February defending the administration's nursing home policies, including the withholding data from the public.

"I really had nothing to do related to the nursing home issues other than basically being brought in to take a look and make a statement and explain the administration's position," Cohen told legislators during his confirmation hearing on Monday. "I don't have first-hand knowledge with respect to what came before me and I leave it to others in the administration those issues."

When O'Mara shifted gears from nursing homes to Boylan's personnel file, Cohen immediately offered less information, citing attorney-client privilege. News reports have placed Cohen in the room during the decision process by the executive leadership to push out Boylan’s personnel record in the wake of her initial allegations at the governor.

“Steve Cohen was in the room where Cuomo folks decided to leak a supposed personnel file on me when I spoke about abuse from our boss,” Boylan tweeted earlier this week about the Port Authority nomination. “This is all so monstrous and I know history will treat it this way. I will help make it so.”

In a statement to the Times Union on Tuesday, she said: “I wouldn’t be surprised if Steve were part of the organized smear campaign against me because for so long he’s done the governor’s dirty work."

In the previous passage, O'Mara refers to NY State Senator Tom O'Mara (R-Big Flats).

The decision to publish Boylan's personnel records is being investigated as an act of unlawful retaliation by New York's attorney general's office. Boylan was the first woman to come forward with allegations of sexual harassment against Governor Cuomo, making her allegations public on 14 December 2020.

Returning back to Cohen, it appears he took steps to keep his role in providing legal advice to Governor Cuomo off the books:

Cohen said he provides legal consultation for the administration "from time to time." It was not immediately clear from Cohen's testimony whether he has been compensated for any legal work or consulting that he has provided to the governor.

O’Mara asked Cohen whether he was choosing to avoid talking about the Boylan situation to prevent self-incrimination. Cohen responded that he was just avoiding speaking out of turn before the governor’s administration. O’Mara pressed Cohen on whether he was an attorney for Cuomo during the Boylan personnel file discussions six months ago.

“I was operating as an attorney,” Cohen said, “but I can’t really characterize what I was or wasn’t advising on.”

The Port Authority has long been considered a "political patronage job paradise", which the governors of both New York and New Jersey have used to reward loyal supporters and donors.

2 December 2021: Calls for SUNY Chancellor James Malatras to Resign or Be Fired

Students call on SUNY Chancellor to resign

Former Andrew M. Cuomo staffer and current SUNY Chancellor James Malatras is in hot water following the release of texts he sent to other Cuomo staffers related to the first woman to come forward to accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment. The first excerpt below provides the background:

The New York College Democratic and Republican clubs called for SUNY Chancellor James Malatras to resign for smearing Lindsey Boylan, the first woman to publicly accuse ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo of harassment.

Malatras’ vicious comments were revealed on Monday when Attorney General Letitia James released a trove of documents related to her investigation of the disgraced governor....

The newly released documents include email chains from May of 2019 where Malatras, a longtime Cuomo aide and advisor before being appointed SUNY chancellor at Cuomo’s behest, trashes Boylan in a dispute over workplace conditions in the governor’s office a year-and-a-half before she leveled her sexual harassment claims.

“Malatras to Boylan: Go f**k yourself,” Malatras texted the Cuomo aides.

“Let’s release some of her cray emails!” Malatras wrote to a staffer in Cuomo’s inner circle after Boylan slammed the governor’s office as a toxic workplace. Cray is slang for crazy.

Malatras also said he wanted to “drive her nuts” — referring to Boylan.

Another staffer, Cuomo officer director, Stephanie Benton, wrote in a text thread, “When do we release the nuclear crazy file, I’m ready to testify.”

A year later, the Cuomo camp did release portions of Boylan’s personnel file to try to undercut her harassment claims.

Student groups at the State University of New York have taken offense at Malatras' role and conduct. In this next excerpt, that offense is bipartisan:

The New York College Democrats and Republican clubs said Malatras’ comments and behavior were beyond the pale — and he must go.

Malatras’ barbs about Boylan were “extremely inappropriate” and “illustrate the chancellor’s pattern of toxic, unprofessional and inexcusable behavior,” said Savannah Chadwick, president of the College Democrats of New York.

“We find the chancellor unfit to lead our great SUNY system, which must uphold itself as an inclusive space for all students and faculty,” said Chadwick.

“College Democrats of New York call on the SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras to resign from his position, and strongly encourage Governor Hochul and the SUNY Board of Trustees to remove Malatras and to conduct a thorough nationwide search for a chancellor should he fail to cooperate.”

Augustus LeRoux, president of the New York Federation of College of Republicans, agreed.

“The malicious words written by Malatras rum counterproductive to the mission of higher education institutions,” LeRoux said.

Malatras received the appointment as SUNY Chancellor as a reward for his service to Andrew M. Cuomo.

Editorial: SUNY chancellor must go

Meanwhile, the Albany Times-Union has joined other newspapers in calling for Malatras' resignation:

We suspect that if State University of New York trustees knew in 2020 what they know now, they would not have hired Jim Malatras as chancellor.

But they did, forgoing a national search and bowing to the will of a now-disgraced governor who was clearly looking to extend his power.

Now it’s 2021, and SUNY’s trustees — and New York’s 20.2 million residents — have gotten a behind-the-scenes look at how Mr. Malatras operated in service to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. It’s an unseemly picture of the person who holds one of the most distinguished educational posts in New York, leading one of the nation’s largest public university systems.

Which raises the inevitable question: How can Mr. Malatras stay in this job even another day?

It was already known that last year, Mr. Malatras was one of the key figures helping the Cuomo administration massage a Health Department report on COVID-19 deaths of nursing home residents. That report — coming at a time when the governor was trying to land a $5.2 million deal for a memoir on his handling of the pandemic — left out thousands of deaths on the excuse that they didn’t happen in nursing homes, but in hospitals the patients had transferred to after getting sick. It was an obscene parsing of a tragedy for political ends.

Mr. Malatras — a former adviser to Mr. Cuomo who became president of SUNY’s Rockefeller Institute and later Empire State College — has maintained he did not manipulate the data, but was mainly involved in making the report “more accessible for a general audience.” Perhaps, but the end result was a report that was factually, politically, and intellectually dishonest.

We think Malatras' role in doctoring the 6 July 2020 report by New York's Department of Health alone is reason enough for his dismissal. The editors continue to note the new information that came out in Malatras' texts with other Cuomo administration officials before concluding he needs to go.

This savaging of a woman for criticizing a toxic environment would be condemnable even in a frat house. But this inexcusable behavior occurred shortly before Mr. Malatras rose from college president to lead an institution that educates hundreds of thousands of young men and women.

Yes, these were private communications. The test of a person’s character, though, is not how he behaves when he knows people are watching, but how he behaves when he thinks they aren’t. Mr. Malatras failed that test. He should resign, or be fired.

Indeed, he should.

14 January 2022: Cuomo Attorneys Restart Smear Machine Ahead of Civil Lawsuits

Andrew Cuomo lawyer levels accusations of her own against alleged victim Lindsey Boylan

Andrew M. Cuomo's legal team stepped up its attacks on 13 January 2022, seeking to discredit both New York's state attorney general sexual harassment probe and the first woman to allege she was sexually harassed by Cuomo. Here's an extended excerpt to give a sense of the claims:

The lawyer defending former Gov. Andrew Cuomo against multiple sexual harassment allegations leveled some accusations of her own Thursday.

Attorney Rita Glavin held a virtual press conference where she alleged that one of Cuomo’s accusers got “more than professional” with the state’s economic development czar — and later used a special, super-secret messaging app to threaten him.

Glavin said evidence recently turned over to her by state Attorney General Letitia James revealed that Empire State Development CEO Howard Zemsky told investigators about a time in late 2017 when he and Cuomo accuser Lindsey Boylan, then his chief of staff, were “more than professional.”

“I’ll leave it at that,” Glavin said of Zemsky’s admission at her own virtual press conference. Cuomo was not in attendance....

Glavin also said Boylan later used the Confide app — which sends encrypted text messages that self-destruct and can’t be captured in screenshots — to contact Zemsky after he and other officials disputed her allegation that Cuomo asked her to play strip poker during a flight on his official jet.

“I can’t wait to destroy your life, your [sic] s–t follower,” Boylan allegedly told Zemsky, according to Glavin.

“And I presume Ms. Boylan is referring to herself and knowing something about Mr. Zemsky.”

After getting Boylan’s text, Zemsky “changed his story” but she was never questioned by James’ investigators about sending it or using the app, Glavin said during a nearly two-hour, virtual news conference.

“The AG had evidence that Ms. Boylan was tampering with a witness, trying to get him to corroborate her and threatened to destroy his life if he didn’t,” she said.

Cuomo's personal attorney also made a point of attacking the media:

Also during her marathon news conference — which at times seemed more like the closing defense argument after a months-long trial — Glavin repeatedly attacked the news media for its coverage of the allegations against Cuomo and accused lawmakers of rushing to judgment against him.

But Glavin never acknowledged that government leaders are held to higher standards than private citizens, although she admitted at one point, “I’m not an elected official, I don’t have to run for reelection.”

With three separate county district attorneys having dropped criminal sexual harassment-related cases against Cuomo that each described as "credible", we view Cuomo's attorney's comments as an indication they are gearing up to defend Cuomo against multiple civil litigation lawsuits that could cost Cuomo millions in damages.

20 September 2021: Updated Profile of Lindsey Boylan

The woman who brought down Andrew Cuomo: ‘I dropped a nuclear bomb on my life’

This report provides an updated profile of Lindsey Boylan, the first woman to come forward to allege former New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo sexually harassed her. It also describes the retaliation taken against her by senior Cuomo officials after she went public. Here's an excerpt describing when she decided to come forward:

On 13 December, she was in the car with her husband and six-year-old daughter.

“I kept seeing his name on twitter feeds floated as a possible candidate for AG and it had reached fever pitch. I instantly started typing my reaction.”

She wrote: “Yes, @NYGovCuomo sexually harassed me for years. Many saw it, and watched. I could never anticipate what to expect: would I be grilled on my work (which was very good) or harassed about my looks. Or would it be both in the same conversation? This was the way for years.”

The fallout from those tweets would extend far beyond Ms Boylan’s own world. After a second woman, Charlotte Bennett, came forward, New York’s Attorney General, Letitia James launched an enquiry into the allegations. Ms Boylan was interviewed multiple times and gave hours of under-oath testimony to both the Attorney General’s attorneys and the State Assembly investigators.

The 165-page report was released on 3 August. The investigation found: “The Governor sexually harassed a number of current and former New York State employees by, among other things, engaging in unwelcome and non-consensual touching, as well as making numerous offensive comments of a suggestive and sexual nature that created a hostile work environment for women.” It would ultimately lead to Mr Cuomo’s resignation, ending his 10-year run as governor, bringing down one of the most prominent Democrats in America, and devastating a family political legacy that stretched over almost 50 years.

The report concludes by updating what Boylan plans for pursuing accountability from the Cuomo administration officials who engaged in the unlawful retaliation:

“What I will focus future legal action on is the retaliation,” Ms Boylan says. “Because that is how I can affect the most change. I want to focus on accountability. There’s been some accountability, [but] not nearly enough, not for me and not nearly enough for too many women. The retaliation is what prevents women from coming forward because they’re going to remember that I was smeared.”

“Right now, I want to spend a little bit of time processing. When you have a traumatic experience, like the whole experience has been, it robs you of the presence of mind to be in wonderful experiences. So I will spend time just being present with my daughter in a way that she deserves. And then I’ll fight again because that’s what we have to do.”

The toxic environment she descibes is also one that allowed the fundamental inhumanity of the Cuomo administration's deadly 25 March 2020 directive to be implemented at the cost of hundreds, if not thousands, of excess COVID deaths among New York nursing home residents without being challenged.

30 July 2021: Cuomo Victim Calls for Legal Sanctions Against Cuomo Lawyer Judith Mogul

Sex-harass accuser says lawyer who quit on Gov. Cuomo’s team should be ‘disbarred’

Counsel to the Governor Judy Mogul's resignation from the Cuomo administration was announced on 28 July 2021. Late that day, Lindsey Boylan, the first woman to come forward with allegations that Andrew M. Cuomo sexually harassed her called for Judith Mogul to be disbarred and prevented from ever practicing law again.

One of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s sexual-harassment accusers said his outgoing lawyer should be “disbarred” over her key role in the scandal that’s under investigation by the Attorney General’s Office and part of an impeachment probe.

Former Cuomo aide Lindsey Boylan responded to special counsel to the governor Judith Mogul’s resignation in a tweet that trashed her efforts on Cuomo’s behalf and called for the revocation of her law license.

“Judith Mogul has left her work defending and enabling serial sexual harasser and abuser @NYGovCuomo,” Boylan wrote Wednesday night on Twitter.

“Next she should be disbarred.”

Earlier this year, Boylan, 37, published an online essay in which she accused Cuomo, 63, of repeatedly harassing her, leading to a flood of similar allegations from current and former aides.

The article doesn't reference it, but it is possible Mogul may have participated in the decision to leak Boylan's state personnel records to the media as a retaliation by Team Cuomo against her allegations. If so, that role would help explain Boylan's reaction to the announcement of Mogul's resignation.

Less speculatively, Mogul played a significant and direct role in the Cuomo administration's handling of Charlotte Bennett's allegations of sexual harassment by Andrew M. Cuomo, where she recently participated in a deposition about her role in that matter with the New York's attorney general's office's investigators.

Mogul's resignation came shortly after Andrew M. Cuomo was depositioned by the same investigators.

26 August 2021: How Cuomo Influence Network Corrupted Time's Up Into Silence

We're continuing to follow this story because a lot of the same players behind the Cuomo COVID nursing home deaths scandals are employing similar methods to advance Andrew M. Cuomo's interests ahead of the public's interest.

Leaders of the ‘Time’s Up’ anti-harassment group worked closely with Cuomo aide after first accusation against him surfaced

This report details how the Cuomo influence network successfully manipulated the Time's Up anti-sexual harassment advocacy group into silence with respect to Lindsey Boylan's allegations of misconduct:

The leaders of Time’s Up, the advocacy group founded by political insiders in Washington and Hollywood to fight workplace sexual misconduct, decided against issuing a statement in support of New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s first harassment accuser in December after consulting with the governor’s top aide, according to people familiar with the matter and text messages obtained by The Washington Post.

The text messages show that Time’s Up chief executive Tina Tchen told her colleagues to “stand down” from a plan to release a public statement supporting Cuomo’s first accuser, Lindsey Boylan, after two people connected to the group spoke with Melissa DeRosa, the governor’s longtime adviser.

A day earlier, DeRosa had briefed Roberta Kaplan, then the chairwoman of Time’s Up, about Cuomo’s plans for an initial response to Boylan, and Kaplan shared the statement with Tchen, according to people familiar with the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose them.

A separate effort by Tchen to pressure DeRosa to oversee an internal investigation into the “workplace culture” in the governor’s office was also abandoned after DeRosa and Kaplan argued that such an effort would lack credibility given that DeRosa was a loyal aide to Cuomo, according to text messages and people familiar with the events.

Roberta Kaplan is a former aide to Andrew M. Cuomo who was embedded within the Time's Up organization, where her actions in this matter revealed her loyalties lay with servicing Andrew M. Cuomo's interests ahead of the organization's stated mission and goals. Once her role as a member of Cuomo's influence network became clear, she was forced to resign from the organization.

The Dec. 15 text message discussion between five senior Time’s Up advisers revealed a far more extensive behind-the-scenes effort to work with Cuomo’s office amid the sexual harassment charges than the group has previously acknowledged. An investigation earlier this month by New York Attorney General Letitia James found that Kaplan had spoken with DeRosa about a separate draft letter responding to Boylan’s allegations, which investigators described as part of an “unlawful retaliation” effort against Boylan. Kaplan had read the letter to Tchen at the time, the investigation found.

Kaplan resigned from the Time’s Up board on Aug. 9, after James’s report was released, amid an outcry from sexual abuse survivor advocates. Tchen has since apologized to survivors and said she does not recall the details of her conversation with Kaplan.

The report continues to detail the internal discussionsat Time's Up and their interactions with top Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa. We think its likely that Tchen will face professional consequences for her role in the matter, which is pending the findings of an internal probe by the organization.

Playing along with the Cuomo influence network is proving to not be a good career choice.

1 December 2021: Transcripts - SUNY Chancellor James Malatras Under Fire for Toxic Texts

Texts show SUNY chancellor in feud with future Cuomo accuser

This report details aspects of the toxic work environment that was tolerated by Andrew M. Cuomo while serving as New York's governor. It specifically involves the contributions to that hostile environment by James Malatras, who has appeared in the timeline previously because of his role in reviewing and editing the 6 July 2020 report by New York's Department of Health, in which Cuomo administration officials concealed the full extent of COVID deaths among nursing home residents that occurred while the administration's deadly 25 March 2020 directive was in effect.

Future SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras took part in online heckling of Lindsey Boylan, an ex-aide to then-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, after she first spoke in May 2019 about what she described as a difficult work environment in the Executive Chamber, according to transcripts and evidence released by the state attorney general's office.

Her remarks came more than a year and a half before she leveled far more serious sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo.

"Let’s release some of her cray emails!" Malatras wrote in response to another colleague in Cuomo's inner circle after Boylan criticized the Cuomo administration as a toxic workplace. ("Cray" is slang for "crazy.")

Malatras' comments get more offensive, please do click through to the report to get a sense of them and their context, which is too long to excerpt here. Several of the comments were made after he had started working at lower levels within the State University of New York, ahead of his unusual appointment as SUNY's chancellor by Andrew M. Cuomo. His continuing in that position is now at question.

Malatras under fire in Cuomo scandal

This report indicates SUNY Chancellor James Malatras is relying on the "mistakes were made" trope to try to avoid the consequences of the toxic work environment to which he contributed as a key member of the Cuomo administration.

The leader of the 64-campus State University system acknowledged Tuesday he "should have used different language" when he employed profanity to curse a woman after she described the Cuomo administration as toxic.

Chancellor James Malatras, in early 2019, wrote acidic comments regarding Lindsey Boylan, then his colleague in the Cuomo administration, in an email to other administration aides.

Boylan would later become the first of a string of women to accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment in the workplace. Those allegations sparked investigations which culminated with Cuomo's resignation in August.

In a separate text message, Malatras encouraged Cuomo aides to smear Boylan by releasing confidential documents in an act of retaliation.

"Let’s release some of her cray emails!" Malatras said, using a slang word for "crazy."

The transcripts were part of the voluminous documents that James' office has been releasing following the completion of an investigation into various scandals centering on Cuomo.

The released transcripts of Malatras' texts indicate he contributed to creating the toxic work environment that has come to define New York's state government under the Cuomo administration. They directly contradict his self-serving statements as he tries to hold onto his job as SUNY Chancellor. The questions are which statements reflects the true Malatras and shall he be allowed to remain employed in the position to which he was appointed by Andrew M. Cuomo as a reward for his participation in his administration?

EDITORIAL: SUNY must dump Malatras

The editors of Schenectady's Daily Gazette have reviewed Malatras' text messages and find his ability to function as a leader to be lacking, calling for a proper replacement:

When you’re associated with terms like “toxic and demoralizing work environment,” accused of sending a text to staff quoting himself saying to the Cuomo accuser “go f— yourself,” when you threaten to “release some of her cray (crazy) emails” and when you’re yukking it up over insulting comments made by other government staff about her, you’re clearly not qualified to lead.

Gov. Hochul can’t remove Malatras as SUNY chancellor herself. But she can exert her clout by calling on the SUNY Board of Trustees to remove Malatras and to conduct the thorough nationwide search for a chancellor that Malatras managed to avoid.

Malatras shouldn’t have gotten the job in the first place, given his thin resume in higher education. His appointment, which touted his management experience in state government, came at the height of the first wave of covid. That was used as the excuse to install someone in the job quickly.

With the SUNY board stacked with Cuomo appointees and loyalists, his appointment was an easy sell, even over the objections of SUNY faculty and the student body.

In supporting Malatras’ appointment, the SUNY board bypassed a national pool of prominent educators, administrators and higher-education leaders, as well as any opportunity to consider a woman or a candidate of color for the post.

This a chance for trustees to rid the state of one of the last remaining lieutenants of the disgraced Cuomo administration and a chance for them to right the earlier wrong, by conducting a thorough search for the best-qualified candidate to be the next chancellor.

Toxic behavior spreads like a virus in an organization. SUNY's board would do well to heed the editors' advice.

5 August 2021: NYU Ethics Professor and Former Team Cuomo Member's Attempted Smear of Cuomo Sex Harassment Victim

REPORT: NYU Law professor attempted to discredit Cuomo accuser

The NYU law professor is ethics instructor Linda Lacewell, the ethically-challenged defender of Cuomo's various misconduct episodes in office. It's not surprising that her name appears prominently in Team Cuomo's documented retaliation effort against Lindsey Boylan, the first woman to come forward alleging sexual harassment on the part of Cuomo. What is remarkable is one of the claims made in letters she was seeking to send out to discredit Boylan.

According to a Tuesday report released by the New York Attorney General’s office, Linda Lacewell, an adjunct professor at NYU Law and Superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, helped gather signatures from former state Executive Chamber staff members for a letter that would have discredited Lindsey Boylan’s account that the governor sexually harassed her....

The report stated that the letter, which was ultimately never released, “denied the legitimacy of Ms. Boylan’s allegations, impugned her credibility, and attacked her claims as politically motivated.”

Ultimately, the Attorney General's report revealed that the governor had sexually harassed 11 women.

Drafts of the letter reviewed in the NY Attorney General’s investigation also contained information claiming that Boylan had “connections with supporters of President Trump” and also alleged that she had an “interest in running for governor.”

That's both remarkable and funny because Team Cuomo has this weird tic of accusing any and all of its critics of wanting to run for governor. Team Cuomo really does need better PR people and more legal help!

26 April 2021: "I Didn't Do Anything Wrong" Says Governor Cuomo on Sexual Harassment Allegations

'I didn't do anything wrong': Andrew Cuomo denies harassment, groping allegations

Governor Cuomo's strategy of hiding behind (investigations/COVID/staged public events) to evade questioning by reporters was interrupted today at an event at the New York State Fairgrounds:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday flatly denied any allegations of sexual harassment or groping, telling reporters he "didn't do anything wrong" despite at least five current or former aides accusing him of misconduct in some form.

Cuomo, a Democrat, allowed members of the media to attend a news conference in person Monday at the New York State Fair grounds near Syracuse, marking the first time the press got to question the governor in a non-virtual setting since December.

The result was Cuomo facing a barrage of questions about the multiple scandals that have engulfed his administration in recent months, including various allegations of sexual harassment and a federal investigation into the state's underrepresenting of nursing home residents who died of COVID-19.

The following excerpt captures the general flavor of Goveror Cuomo's responses he provided to multiple questions about the allegations of sexual harassment levied against him:

The governor scoffed when asked Monday whether he would resign or discipline himself if the latter investigation determined he sexually harassed women.

"The report can't say anything different because I didn't do anything wrong," he said.

The news media was quick to get a response from Lindsay Boylan, the first woman to come forward with sexual harassment allegations:

The governor's comments drew an immediate rebuke from Lindsey Boylan, a former Cuomo aide who was the first to publicly accuse him of sexual harassment, first in a tweet last year and later in an online essay she published in February.

Among other comments and acts, Boylan claims Cuomo stepped in front of her and kissed her on the lips without consent as she exited a 2018 meeting in the governor's Manhattan office.

"Truly disgusting," Boylan tweeted Monday in response to Cuomo's comments. "This man is full of lies. Unfortunately for him, he does not control the truth and many people would have to ignore a lot of truth and evidence to accept this bulls---."

Note the difference between Boylan's nearly instant reaction and Governor Cuomo's relative non-responsiveness after weeks of hiding from questions.

Cuomo faces the press for first time since December

This article covers some of the same territory, but delves deeper into Governor Cuomo's pandemic "leadership" book scandal. Here's an excerpt:

Besides questions about sexual harassment, he fielded questions about his administration's nursing homes' policies and the alleged coverup by his administration of the true COVID-19 death toll in those facilities. He also was asked about his staff's assistance with the book, "American Crisis," he wrote and published about his administration's response to the pandemic while it was still unfolding.

“People volunteered to work on the book," he said. "Do you know anyone who said they have to work on the book who didn’t volunteer? Next question."

The reporter asking about that issue pressed on — something that would be impossible in a virtual press conference format — until the governor finally said: "I didn’t have them sign a volunteer form if that’s what you’re asking. ... Do you know anyone who worked on the book who said they didn’t volunteer?”

The Times Union has reported that some staffers said they did not believe their work was voluntary.

We'll pick up Governor Cuomo's comments regarding his COVID nursing home deaths scandals in a separate timeline entry.

6 August 2021: The Shady Operations of Cuomo's Influence Network

Ex-Cuomo aides helped shape a defense as accusations mounted

It appears that Andrew M. Cuomo invested a lot of time and effort to create an influence network. Much like how a foreign power deploys intelligence officers to run its spy networks, using them to obtain information and to either recruit or influence people within the countries they have been deployed to extend the interests of their home country, it appears the Cuomo administration did much the same, with its loyalists successfully embedded into outside organizations where they could continue their primary mission of supporting Andrew M. Cuomo's political interests. This report from the Albany Times-Union picks up on several of the individual threads threads we featured earlier today on this very topic.

Last December, a former economic development aide to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo became the first woman to publicly accuse him of sexual harassment, tweeting that Cuomo was “one of the biggest abusers of all time.”

Lindsey Boylan’s decision to come forward, at a time when Cuomo was still nationally popular, set off a furious internal debate in Cuomo’s camp about how and whether to retaliate. And as a political crisis grew in the following months, quiet conversations about how to combat the allegations did not just include current Cuomo staffers, but also an array of former high-ranking administration officials, most of whom now work for private interests.

Those details are revealed in a 168-page report issued on Tuesday by state Attorney General Letitia James, which finds Cuomo and his members of his administration had allegedly violated both state and federal laws, including by retaliating against Boylan. While Cuomo denied the report’s conclusion that he sexually harassed women over the course of years, the findings have prompted the state Assembly to hasten impeachment proceedings.

As Cuomo faces the likely prospect of removal, also at risk are the reputations of members of his inner circle, whose emails, texts and group chats are extensively detailed in the report, and made public in attached exhibits. They show that some of the advisors were deeply involved in the efforts, others on the periphery. Some also urge caution about shaming accusers.

Still, after Boylan’s tweets last December, Cuomo’s top government staffer soon decided to leak Boylan’s confidential personnel file, against the advice of some in the tight-knit circle. Certain Cuomo confidants — including several involved in prominent groups that fight discrimination — advised Cuomo about a proposed op-ed attacking Boylan, which was never published. And at least one former staffer was enlisted to find out whether a woman allegedly harassed by Cuomo was speaking to the media.

Richard Azzopardi, Cuomo’s longtime spokesman and one of his most ardent defenders, testified to investigators that the outside advisors were “people who have been with us for a long time who we could trust.”

“When you feel like you’re in battle, you turn to those you trust,” Azzopardi testified....

None of the outside advisors was officially retained by the Executive Chamber. Instead, they quietly did the work on a volunteer basis while holding day jobs for private interests.

Here's an excerpt from the report indicating Cuomo was at the center of his administration's influence operation:

Cuomo directed DeRosa to seek input from “some of the folks on the team,” including Roberta Kaplan, a New York City-based attorney and co-founder of the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund, an organization that supports individuals “who've experienced sexual harassment or retaliation at work to come forward.” (Kaplan was also the private counsel to DeRosa during the attorney general's investigation.)

Having Roberta Kaplan on Team Cuomo is significant because the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund is ostensibly an advocacy group whose purpose is to help victims of sexual harassment. Using her to get other members of the Time's Up group on board in supporting Cuomo against his sexual harassment would effectively defang the organization in his political favor.

This report also describes the Cuomo administration's efforts to use its influence network to smear the reputations of the investigators probing the multiple allegations of Andrew M. Cuomo's conduct. Do click through to read the whole thing!

Update: Here is yet another story of the extended Cuomo influence network doing Cuomo's bidding....

7 September 2021: HRC President/Cuomo Influence Network Member Ousted from Job, Vows Legal Retaliation Against HRC

Human Rights Campaign fires president over link to Cuomo

Well, that happened a lot faster than we expected!...

Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy group in the United States, said it has fired President Alphonso David following the publication of a report that said he aided former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in his response to sexual assault allegations.

The HRC and the HRC Foundation Boards of Directors separately voted to terminate David "for cause, effective immediately," for violating his contract with the organization, it said Monday in a statement.

The announcement of David's ousting follows a board-led investigation launched last month into his actions, which were brought to light in an early August report by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The report summarizes David's involvement with the Cuomo administration's retaliation against Lindsey Boylan after she levied charges of sexual harassment against Andrew M. Cuomo.

The attorney general's report, which completed a five-month investigation, found that Cuomo had sexually harassed 11 women, including former and current state employees.

It said David while president of the HRC helped Cuomo in efforts to discredit former aide Lindsey Boylan who accused the governor of sexual transgressions.

David, former counsel to the governor, had created internal documents from an investigation and counseling of Boylan concerning an unrelated matter while he was employed by the state. In December of last year while employed by the HRC, a top aide to Cuomo had asked David for that information, which was sent by Cuomo's office to reporters hours before Boylan tweeted the governor had sexually harassed her.

David is the latest member of the Cuomo influence network to be ousted from their post-Cuomo administration position.

Ex-HRC president vows legal action after his removal for aiding Cuomo's damage control

Perhaps not absorbing that his participation in the Cuomo administration's retaliation effort against Lindsey Boylan directly led to his ouster as president of the Human Rights Council LGBTQ advocacy group, Alphonso David pledged to retaliate against the organization.

Former Human Rights Campaign president Alphonso David vowed late Monday to take legal action against the organization's board hours after he was fired for advising former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's during his sexual misconduct scandal.

"After I demanded truth and transparency, the HRC board co-chairs who should stand for human rights elected to hide in the darkness," said David, who led the U.S. largest LGBTQ advocacy group. "They unjustly provided notice of termination to me in order to end my fight for the integrity of the review process and for what is right. I asked for the report, they refused. They lied about producing the report."

He added, "Now that they are being called to task, they tried to shut me up. As a Black, gay man who has spent his whole life fighting for civil and human rights, they cannot shut me up. Expect a legal challenge.”

This will likely be the timeline's final coverage of David's employment situation, as the incident that led to David's firing illustrates the tactics the Cuomo administration used to suppress information it believed to be damaging to the political and legal interests of Andrew M. Cuomo.

20 March 2021: Anti-Cuomo Rallies, CNN's Falling Ratings, and What the Second Wave of COVID in Nursing Homes Says About the First

Anti-Cuomo protesters want Cuomo resignation over nursing home deaths:

• 'He lied.': Demonstrators call for Cuomo's resignation over nursing home deaths

Anti-Cuomo rally in New York City, first Cuomo sexual harassment accuser Lindsey Boylan speaks:

• More than 300 NYC Marchers Rally to Protest Cuomo, Push for Progressive Policies
• Activists rally in NYC calling for Gov. Cuomo’s impeachment, Boylan speaks

Boylan made a very valid point in her comments at the rally:

"When the Governor should have been focused on leading us out of this pandemic, he instead focused on covering up the deaths of 15,000 New Yorkers, and smearing me and my reputation."

In a lot of ways, the sexual harassment allegations are being used by New York Democrats, including Governor Cuomo, to distract attention away from the Cuomo administration's COVID nursing home deaths scandals. The Cuomo administration has only tainted itself in its actions against Boylan.

In other news, the "Cuomo Show" isn't what it used to be:

• Chris Cuomo has lost an average of 600,000 viewers a night on CNN since his brother's nursing home and sex scandals - which the show ignores

Just a reminder that Peak Cuomo was reached for CNN's cheerleader-style coverage of Governor Andrew Cuomo on 6 May 2020. It's not often you see a news network choose to shred all its journalistic credibility, which entered its rapid collapse phase on 21 May 2020.

The final article in today's roundup relates to how a handful of New York nursing homes never got their act together in preventing the spread of COVID in their facilities. A failure that carried a price when the second wave of COVID came in the fall and winter of 2020:

• Some NY nursing homes proved helpless in face of virus surge

The report points to the role of nursing home workers as superspreaders within the most affected facilities. By contrast, most other facilities saw much fewer infections, including those that experienced severe outbreaks and deaths during the first wave of COVID infections in New York.

The difference between the earlier and later waves in these other nursing homes may be attributable to the Cuomo administration's 25 March 2020 directive and other policies that limited the nursing homes ability to obtain PPE during the first, deadlier wave. The 25 March 2020 directive would have contributed to the initial exposure of nursing home workers to COVID while it was in effect, while the lack of sufficient PPE supplies would contribute to its rapid spread within the facilities during that period.

6 October 2021: Lindsey Boylan Calls for Cuomo-Appointed State Democratic Party Chair to Resign

Cuomo sexual harassment accuser calls on Hochul to boot Dem boss Jay Jacobs

We're following this story as a footnote to this 5 October 2021 entry on the timeline, where we had picked up on the bizarrely genuflective behavior of Jay Jacobs, the chair of New York's state Democratic Party, toward the resigned-in-disgrace Andrew M. Cuomo. Apparently, we weren't the only ones who thought his actions were strange.

Andrew Cuomo’s sexual harassment accusers ripped the head of the state Democratic Party Tuesday for his “gross” decision to call the disgraced former governor before endorsing his successor — with one of the women demanding Gov. Kathy Hochul boot him from his post.

Lindsey Boylan, the first of 11 women to accuse Cuomo of sexual misconduct, declared Tuesday that Gov. Kathy Hochul should move to “get rid” of state Democratic Party boss Jay Jacobs.

“The governor should absolutely get rid of Jacobs, and whether she does or not will be a litmus test of whether she is more interested in doing the right thing, or consolidating her own power,” Boylan, who has said Cuomo harassed her repeatedly when she worked as a state economic development staffer, told The Post.

Jacobs on Monday revealed that he had placed a “courtesy call” to Cuomo out of “respect” before publicly declaring that he’s backing the disgraced governor’s replacement in her potential 2022 primary — a move critics decried as “unacceptable” and “preposterous.”

Considering that Hochul was going to be dumped by party officials from running on the Cuomo ticket in 2022, it would be in her interest to replace Jacobs with someone who places her interests ahead of those of Andrew M. Cuomo. Especially as she builds real support for her run for NY Governor.

We'll feature more of Hochul's "dumped by Cuomo" story as the bottom story of the day, unless breaking news involving Chris Cuomo develops....

9 August 2021: Cuomo Sexual Harassment Victim Brittany Commisso's Televised Interview

Brittany Commisso says hugs, kisses from Cuomo were “not normal,” “not welcomed”

The following interview segment was broadcast on CBS This Morning on 9 August 2021.

The interview was a joint production between CBS News and the Albany Times Union, which carried the written story, which the timeline is presenting below....

Cuomo accuser: 'What he did to me is illegal'

We've known her as the ninth woman to come forward with serious allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct by Andrew M. Cuomo. In the NY attorney general's blockbuster 3 August 2021 report, she is identified as "Executive Assistant #1". Since she filed a criminal complaint against Cuomo on 5 August 2021, she has lost her anonymity, where the public has learned her name: Brittany Commisso. Since most other sources covering the story emphasize the sensationalistic elements of the story involving Cuomo's sexual harassment, the timeline is opting to describe how Cuomo administration officials responded after she reported her allegations to them, which we think is an underappreciated aspect of the story:

In early March, after the Times Union first reported that Commisso’s allegations had been disclosed to senior aides in the Executive Chamber by her co-workers, she said she felt a change in the dynamics of the office.

“It’s been a really hard couple of months,” Commisso said Friday. “It’s been — even though I’ve remained anonymous — and even though the … governor’s counsel and his team have said that, you know, the women who still work there are protected and there’s no retaliation … it’s different. People look at me differently. I’m not given the same job opportunities. I know that people have gotten raises. A lot of people around me.”

But Commisso said she has not received a raise and that recently she has received very few assignments, which, her attorney Brian D. Premo said, is another form of harassment.

What Premo describes as another form of harassment is better described as retaliation. Commisso's treatment differs from the retaliation taken against Cuomo's first accuser, Lindsey Boylan. In both cases, senior Cuomo administration officials (who we frequently refer to as "Team Cuomo"), led by Cuomo's top aide Melissa DeRosa, played prominent roles in the actions. In Commisso's case, the retaliation appears less extreme than in Boylan's case because Commisso went through proper channels in reporting Cuomo's misconduct involving her, limiting Team Cuomo's ability to come down as brutally hard as they did against Boylan.

We strongly suspect DeRosa's involvement in the retaliations taken against both women played a very large role in her surprise resignation the day before Commisso's interview was published.

Who is Brittany Commisso, the latest Andrew Cuomo accuser to go public?

The New York Post provided a very readable profile for Brittany Commisso, which provides a little more depth than what is contained in the Albany Times-Union's report.

No Response from Andrew M. Cuomo or His Legal Team

The timeline delayed our coverage of the Commisso interview because we anticipated a response from Andrew M. Cuomo or possibly from his legal team to have taken place sometime during 9 August 2021. At this writing late in the evening, despite having days of notice and virtually all day to respond to the interview, no such response has been forthcoming.

25 March 2021: Opinion - Cuomo Abuses Power with Personnel Files

In Our Opinion: Cuomo's abuse of personnel files is another scandal

This commentary by the editors of Oneonta, NY's Daily Star focuses on an underappreciated aspect of Governor Cuomo's abuse of power:

The response by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his administration to a series of sexual harassment allegations against the governor has brought renewed attention to one of Cuomo’s more disturbing practices: his use of the apparatus of state government as a tool to burnish his image, and to tarnish that of his perceived enemies....

In a piece for the New Yorker this month, Eric Lach notes that shortly after Boylan’s December accusation, several media outlets mysteriously came to possess state personnel files on Boylan that described her as “unprofessional” and a “bully” who belittled three Black employees. Boylan’s attorney, Jill Basinger, called the apparent smear campaign against her client “shocking and disgusting,” and said she expects James’ investigation into Cuomo’s conduct to also look into the leak of the files.

The New Yorker reported separately that former Cuomo staffer Rich Bamberger was the middleman in the leaks; Bamberger now works for Kivvit, a public relations firm that employs two other former Cuomo staffers. Longtime readers might recognize Bamberger’s name, as in 2012 he was the author of a 35-page dossier on Capital Tonight host Liz Benjamin that highlighted comments and blog posts perceived to be critical of Cuomo. At the time, Cuomo press secretary Josh Vlasto — who now works with Bamberger at Kivvit — disputed the characterization of the dossier as an “enemies list” but said it was compiled for use in a meeting with Benjamin’s bosses at YNN. Vlasto said the “meeting went well,” and that “the blogs were never discussed again, and then they were discarded. You know, I guess somebody is going through our trash these days, which is another matter that we’ll have to look into.”

Like Governor Cuomo's nursing home scandals, Governor Cuomo's abuse of power scandals took teamwork. The sooner a conclusion is reached to fully clean house in Albany, the better.

6 August 2021: Leader of LGBTQ Group Participated in Smears of Cuomo Sex Harassment Victim

Damning N.Y. AG report on Cuomo ensnares HRC president

The NY Attorney General's report on Andrew M. Cuomo's sexual harassment of 11 women is having an impact on players inside Cuomo's political network. This report describes how Alphonso David, the president of Human Rights Campaign, a LBGTQ political advocacy group, participated in Team Cuomo's retaliation efforts aimed at smearing Lindsey Boylan, the first woman to publicly come forward to accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment.

The damning report finding New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo violated the law by sexually harassing as many as 11 women on his staff has ensnared the president of the nation’s leading LGBTQ advocacy group, Alphonso David of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).

Although David insists the report does not indicate any wrongdoing on his behalf, the findings indicate after his tenure as counselor to Cuomo, that he kept the personnel file for an employee within the office accusing the governor of sexual misconduct, then assisted in efforts to leak that file to the media in an attempt to discredit her.

Further, the report finds David allegedly said he would help find individuals to sign their names to a draft op-ed that sought to discredit the survivor, but went unpublished, although he wouldn’t sign the document himself. Also, the report indicates David was involved in the discussions about another staffer secretly calling and recording a call between a former staffer and another survivor in a separate effort to smear her.

Senior officials within HRC are rejecting calls for David to resign following the confirmation of his role in the attempted smears.

Meanwhile, the board of the Human Rights Campaign has shown no sign of turning on David. In fact, HRC announced it renewed David’s contract on his two-year anniversary for five more years.

Morgan Cox, chair of the Human Rights Campaign board of directors, and Jodie Patterson, chair of the non-profit Human Rights Campaign Foundation board of directors in a joint statement to the Washington Blade affirmed both boards “have full confidence in Alphonso David as president of the organization.”...

Speaking with the Blade, David also said he has no intention of stepping down from his position as president of the Human Rights Campaign voluntarily.

The strange decision to retain David as HRC president sets up the next news item from 5 August 2021:

Human Rights Campaign staff reportedly revolts over boss’ ties to Cuomo scandal

This report covers the infighting within HRC that broke out regarding David's role in smearing Cuomo sexual harassment accuser Lindsey Boylan:

Staff at the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ rights advocacy group, appear to be on the brink of a mutiny after they discovered their top boss was involved with Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s sexual harassment scandal, reports said Thursday.

HRC President Alphonso David was excoriated for nearly an hour and a half during a staff meeting Wednesday after employees learned he had a direct role in attempting to discredit a Cuomo accuser while employed with the human rights group, the Huffington Post reported.

The file included disciplinary issues Boylan had while working for the governor that David “counseled” her on and was later leaked to the press to discredit her after she publicly accused Cuomo of sexual harassment in a series of tweets last December.

David, a longtime member of Cuomo’s coterie of confidantes, told staff he was “legally obligated” to hand over the copy of the file even though he no longer worked for the governor and said it was just a replica and not the official state document, the outlet reported.

Staff weren’t satisfied with his answers and many demanded that he resign, the outlet said, citing a recording of the meeting they obtained.

David's action is consistent with the establishment of a hostile work environment within the Cuomo administration and, to the extent HRC's board is willing to look the other way at his actions while on their payroll, the establishment of a toxic work culture within HRC as well.

This is the second of three stories we're featuring on this topic, where one of the common elements that appear in each is the integration of former Cuomo administration officials within the media and advocacy organizations where they continued serving Andrew M. Cuomo's interests. Their new employers would appear to share a bizarre tolerance for their activities on behalf of Andrew M. Cuomo while on their payrolls.

14 August 2021: NY Assembly Dems Slam Heastie Choice to Pull Plug on Cuomo Impeachment

Lindsey Boylan, Ron Kim Slam NYS Assembly's Decision to Suspend Cuomo Impeachment Probe

This report covers the reaction of a Cuomo sexual harassment victim and a Cuomo COVID nursing home deaths scandal victim to the news from NY Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie that the Assembly will drop its impeachment probe. First here's the reaction of Lindsay Boylan, the first woman to come forward to allege Andrew M. Cuomo sexually harassed her, whom senior Cuomo administration officials targeted for retaliation:

Lindsey Boylan, one of Cuomo's accusers over alleged sexual harassment, called the decision to not continue the investigation an "unjust cop out."

"The public deserves to know the extent of the Governor's misdeeds and possible crimes," she said in a tweet Friday afternoon. "His victims deserve justice and to know he will not be able harm others."

She also said in a tweet Saturday morning: "I feel the deep disappointment so many have in the leaders of our state. What I also know is that it is countless women with many years left in their careers leading the fight against the corruption & morass. We will win this fight together. Of that, I am confident."

Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens) lost his uncle, who died from COVID in a New York City nursing home during the period the Cuomo administration's deadly 25 March 2020 directive was in effect. Here are Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens) comments:

Assemblymember Ron Kim, a fierce critic of the governor, said in a tweet that "Cuomo will start claiming his innocence by saying the Assembly won't imp-each him because he didn't do anything wrong. He will play the victim while attacking 11 courageous women who spoke up."

"We can't allow this to happen," he tweeted.

He also shared a memo from lawyer Robert Hockett that said the Assembly's decision is "regrettably short on both legal authority and persuasive authority."

Here is the statement Kim posted on Twitter:

“Removal” means: impeachment + conviction from office (a) to give formal legal expression to the State’s judgment that the miscreant official is no longer legally fit for office, and (b) formally to stigmatize the official as unfit for office.

2/ pic.twitter.com/nzTCMqnrli

— Ron T. Kim (@rontkim) August 14, 2021

“Removing” Cuomo does not simply mean the literal removal of Cuomo, the man, but removal, disqualification, and condemnation of every criminality he has done and stood for to protect the integrity of the state government and the people it is supposed to protect.

3/

— Ron T. Kim (@rontkim) August 14, 2021

14 May 2021: Cuomo Contradicts His Own Harassment Law

Cuomo contradicts his own harassment law

On 13 May 2021, a Governor Cuomo attempted to redefine the definition of sexual harassment in New York. Observers are noting his new definition contradicts the definition provided in a law he signed in 2019:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo offered a definition of sexual harassment on Thursday that contradicts a law he signed in 2019. “Harassment is not making someone feel uncomfortable,” Cuomo said at a press conference in the Bronx. “That is not harassment. If I just made you feel uncomfortable, that is not harassment, that is you feeling uncomfortable.”

In 2019, New York did away with the law that required discriminatory behavior to be “severe or pervasive” in order to be considered harassment. Many victims’ rights advocates considered that standard too burdensome, leaving out a lot of reprehensible conduct and making harassment difficult to prove. It was replaced with the standard that the behavior be more than “a petty slight or inconvenience,” a much lower bar to clear. It was a change that Cuomo celebrated and something he has taken credit for implementing.

“Sexual harassment also consists of any unwanted verbal or physical advances, sexually explicit derogatory statements or sexually discriminatory remarks made by someone which are offensive or objectionable to the recipient, which cause the recipient discomfort or humiliation, which interfere with the recipient’s job performance,” reads the model sexual harassment policy posted on the governor’s website. While not all uncomfortable situations are harassment, harassment is inherently uncomfortable for the victim.

This report also details the reaction of Charlotte Bennett, the second woman to come forward in accusing Governor Cuomo of sexual harassment, to Governor Cuomo's attempted redefinition of the New York state law's meaning:

Cuomo’s remarks drew sharp rebukes from his accusers and anti-sexual harassment advocates. “When @NYGovCuomo propositioned me for sex, he broke the law. It is very simple: the issue is about his actions, it is not about my feelings. He broke the law (you know, the one he signed). Apologies don’t fix that, and neither do denials,” Bennett wrote on Twitter. Bennett’s lawyer, Debra Katz, called Cuomo’s comments “jaw-dropping,” in a statement. “For someone who signed the law defining sexual harassment in New York State... Gov. Cuomo continues to show an alarming degree of ignorance about what constitutes sexual harassment,” Katz wrote.

As a quick bit of analysis, it is also perhaps the most self-serving, almost sociopathic way possible in which to redefine what constititutes sexual harassment by a powerful politician accused of it.

The criticism didn't stop there. The first woman to come forward to accuse Governor Cuomo of sexually harassing her, Lindsey Boylan, also weighed in, as did the interest group that successfully pushed for the 2019 change in New York's state law:

And Lindsey Boylan, the first former staffer to accuse Cuomo of harassment, reiterated her call for the governor to be removed from office. “The single most powerful man in New York is trying to play devil’s advocate for himself, contradicting a bill that he himself signed into law,” Boylan said in a statement.

The Sexual Harassment Working Group, which pushed for the state’s new harassment laws in 2019, also released a statement lambasting Cuomo’s comments, saying his defense would flop in court. “We accept his original confirmation of Charlotte Bennett’s account of him breaking the New York State Human Rights Law he signed, creating a hostile work environment and grooming her for sex,” the group wrote.

Have we mentioned Governor Cuomo is seeking better PR people and more legal help lately? Have we also mentioned that Governor Cuomo's position as the alleged perpetrator in several incidents of sexual harassment gives him inside information into what New York Attorney General Letitia James' investigation of the alleged incidents is likely to find?

If nothing else, that would explain Mr. Cuomo's recent statements, as documented in the timeline:

• 11 May 2021: Editorial - The Preemptive Smears of Governor Cuomo
• 13 May 2021: Cuomo Claims "Harassment is not making someone feel uncomfortable"

14 December 2021: More Fallout for Cuomo Influence Network Members

PR exec connected to Andrew Cuomo sex-harass defense leaves job

Andrew M. Cuomo's influence network, largely made up of former staffers to the resigned-in-disgrace governor who were embedded within media and leftist activist organizations, continues to shrink in its influence. This report covers the latest former Cuomo staffer who has left their job, apparently in response to information contained within the New York state attorney general's offices probe of Cuomo's alleged sexual harassment of multiple women:

A top executive at politically connected public relations firm Kivvit resigned less than a month before newly released documents showed she had been aware of disgraced Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plans to discredit sexual harassment accusers.

Maggie Moran, Cuomo’s 2018 reelection campaign manager and a current managing partner at swanky PR firm Kivvit, was in the governor’s mansion in February when accuser Lindsey Boylan published a blog post saying that the then-governor kissed her without her consent and asked her to play strip poker on a taxpayer-funded jet, according to testimony from Cuomo confidante Steve Cohen.

Moran was also included in group messages where other Cuomo staffers and allies plotted how to discredit Boylan and kill news coverage of the governor’s pervy behavior, according to documents recently released by Attorney General Letitia James.

For her part, Moran acknowledges being in on the e-mail discussions, but claims to not have participated:

Despite Moran’s inclusion in weeks of messages, she insisted in a statement to The Post that she never responded with any advice about the sexual harassment claims or participated in any calls about the issue.

“I can not control being included in an email,” Moran told The Post. “In fact, I repeatedly asked to be removed from emails regarding the sexual assault allegations detailed in the Attorney General’s report and never engaged in those communications. When asked to join calls regarding allegations of sexual assault, I chose not to participate in them — every time.”

Moran’s claim that she asked to be removed from the email threads does not appear to be supported by any of the messages released by the attorney general.

And now she's leaving the executive job. The report indicates she is the third former Cuomo staffer to do so:

Meanwhile, Josh Vlasto and Rich Bamberger, two other Cuomo press staffers-turned-Kivvit employees, appear to have been more intimately involved in Cuomo’s defense than Moran. Vlasto helped spread Boylan’s personnel file to the press in an attempt to “discredit and disparage” her, while Bamberger helped gather signatures for a letter attacking her credibility, according to the attorney general.

The duo left the firm in August after The Post reported on their roles helping Cuomo and a series of lucrative contracts between Kivvit and state agencies. At the time, Kivvit also quietly updated Moran’s online bio to remove any mention of her work on Cuomo’s 2018 campaign. The company insisted that Bamberger and Vlasto had been acting entirely in their personal capacities when they helped Cuomo.

Yet documents show Moran was in multiple message threads alongside Vlasto and had been invited to join at least one group call that included him, showing that she was at least aware of his role defending Cuomo.

She will apparently be working in the marijuana industry instead of the PR agency that specializes in serving politicians and New York state government agencies.