Cuomo ills seen as fund draw
Mclaughlin makes donation appeal ahead of reelection effort
Rensselaer County Executive Steve Mclaughlin, who for years has been the target of complaints of sexual harassment and bullying, is raising campaign funds off of the travails of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who faces similar allegations in a scandal that has rocked the state Capitol.
“Cuomo says he won’t resign ... we’ll see. In the meantime go here and order to show your disgust with him,” Mclaughlin tweeted Wednesday with a link to a website where supporters can buy “Impeach Cuomo” mugs and window decals. Each sticker features the hashtag #Believeinsteve.
Mclaughlin made his donation appeal as he heads into a reelection effort against potential Democratic challenger Gwen Wright and a political opposition expected to bring up the repeated complaints regarding Mclaughlin’s volcanic temper and the allegation he sexually harassed an Assembly staffer. Mclaughlin, a Republican, has been a frequent critics of Cuomo, a Democrat, since he served in the Assembly, and has frequently sparred with Cuomo’s staff on Twitter.
Calls for the governor to resign increased this week after a third woman came forward in a story published Monday, alleging the governor held her face and asked if he could kiss her while they were attending a wedding reception two years ago.
The politicians breaking ranks with Cuomo and asking him to resign include a batch of progressive Democrats in the Legislature — as well as Kathleen Rice, a Democratic member of
Congress from Long Island. Many Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt, have called for Cuomo’s resignation.
But Mclaughlin has faced high-profile complaints of his own.
In September 2017, amid Mclaughlin’s initial run for county executive, the Times Union published audio of a female legislative aide on the phone with Mclaughlin accusing him of roughing her up — a claim Mclaughlin denied and that the woman backed away from in a subsequent recording made by Mclaughlin’s team.
In the recording of the initial conversation between the thenassemblyman and the aide, Mclaughlin called her “an awful f__ing human being,” “still fat” and “a vicious c__.”
“I hope this is hurting your feelings, because it’s meant to,” Mclaughlin told the woman. He told the paper he regretted the remarks, which he termed “heat-of-the-moment stuff.”
In late 2017, just after his election to his current post, the public learned he had been sanctioned by Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie for his actions related to
a June 2016 incident in which a female Assembly aide accused him of asking her to provide nude photos.
The action against Mclaughlin — who denied the charges — followed a 17-month investigation by the Assembly’s Committee on Ethics and Guidance. The probe centered on allegations made by an aide to Assemblyman Andy Goodell, a Republican from Jamestown, who said Mclaughlin asked her for nude photos during a brief encounter on the bustling Assembly floor in 2016.
In late 2019, he was caught on tape browbeating the GOP candidate for Troy mayor, Tom Reale, in a discussion between Mclaughlin, party operatives and Reale that degenerated into a name-calling shouting match with Mclaughlin lobbing threats and declaring himself the “boss of the party.”
“I’m telling you right now, I run the f__ing show around here. I want you out of the f__ing race,” Mclaughlin told Reale as his voice rose. “If you don’t do it ... trust me when I tell you, there’s going to be consequences all the way around and the best way for you to save face is to look yourself in the mirror and say that you did everything you could to help the people of Troy save them from this sh__head that’s running the place, ‘cause you’re not going to win, and you’re going to get embarrassed.”
Pressure has been mounting on Cuomo for more than a month. His administration is dealing with political scandals on two fronts, regarding his administration’s handling of COVID -19 in nursing homes and his alleged sexual harassment of multiple women.
The most recent calls for Cuomo’s resignation follow unsettling allegations from three women — former aides Lindsey Boylan and Charlotte Bennett, and Anna Ruch, who did not work for Cuomo but told the New York Times that Cuomo grabbed her and attempted to kiss her at a wedding.
The story about Ruch’s account included a photo of Cuomo holding her face as she looks at him with evident discomfort.
Amid the growing scandals, complaints of bullying by the Cuomo administration were also made with Assemblyman Ron Kim, a Democrat from Queens, alleging Cuomo threatened to “destroy” him after he spoke out about Cuomo’s nursing home policies. The Cuomo administration denied threatening to destroy Kim.
Cuomo on Wednesday said he would not resign as he urged the public to be “patient” and wait for the results of an investigation being conducted by the state attorney general’s office into allegations that the governor had sexual harassed at least three women.
The governor apologized to the women if he had “offended” them but defended his actions as inadvertent behavior that he claimed he now knows was inappropriate.