Cuomo investigation and possible impeachment
NEW YORK » Gov. Andrew Cuomo has urged New Yorkers to “wait for the facts.”
Patience, though, has grown thin. The state’s two U.S. senators, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and most of the 27 other members of New York’s congressional delegation have called for his resignation. In the state legislature, more than 120 lawmakers have called on the Democrat to quit.
Leaders in the state Assembly on Thursday announced an impeachment investigation, a first step toward potentially removing Cuomo from office.
Cuomo has rebuffed calls to resign and staked his political future on the outcome of an independent investigation by Attorney General Letitia James, who is examining allegations that the governor sexually harassed or inappropriately touched several female aides.
Here’s a look at the next steps on a possible road to impeachment:
Attorney general’s investigation
James, an independently elected Democrat, hired former Acting U.S Attorney Joon Kim and employment discrimination attorney Anne Clark to lead her inquiry into the governor’s workplace conduct.
The investigative team will have the power to subpoena documents and interview witnesses. Its findings will go in a public report.
Cuomo has since said that he will “fully cooperate.”
James lacks power to unilaterally remove Cuomo from office, but any findings corroborating the allegations could sway potential impeachment proceedings — or add pressure for Cuomo to leave voluntarily.
Kim and Clark may choose to limit their scope to allegations that are already public, or broaden it to look for other women who might have complaints about Cuomo’s behavior.
James’ office sent a letter last week instructing
the governor’s office to preserve all evidence related to the harassment allegations. That could include documents and emails to and from Cuomo’s staff, calendar entries and communications involving the transfer of one of his accusers to another office.
There is no deadline for completing the investigation and James hasn’t said how long she expects it to take. A 2010 investigation that Cuomo oversaw as attorney general into his predecessor, Gov. David Paterson, lasted about five months.
Andrew G. Celli Jr., who was chief of the civil rights bureau in the office of attorney general from 1999 to 2003, said that while James is a Democrat, her independence would allow her to “do what she thinks is in the best interest of all the people, even if that means an adverse finding to the governor.”
The Judiciary Committee
The Assembly’s Judiciary Committee will also have power to subpoena documents and witness testimony. It could rely on work done by the attorney general’s team of investigators, or gather its own evidence.
The scope of its inquiry might go beyond Cuomo’s conduct with women. The governor is also under fire for his handling of the COVID-19 crisis in the state’s nursing homes.
Many lawmakers have been outraged that the Cuomo administration declined, for months, to release the full number of nursing home patients killed by the virus.