Al takes dump on ex-pal Gilly
ALBANY — Former U.S. Sen. Al D’Amato, a longtime friend of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s family, is now trashing her as she seeks reelection to a second full term. The Republican D’Amato on Monday is set to endorse Democrat Gillibrand’s GOP opponent, Chele Chiavacci Farley. And according to sources, he launched into a profane attack on his former intern during a recent fund-raiser.
Two sources said the 80-year-old senator-turned-lobbyist said of Gillibrand at the Suffolk County Republican event: “She doesn’t care two s--ts in a bucket about the people of the State of New York.”
Gillibrand’s father, Albany lobbyist Douglas Rutnik, is a longtime friend of D’Amato’s.
D’Amato was the only Republican on the stage when then-Gov. David Paterson in 2009 announced Gillibrand as the replacement for Sen. Hillary Clinton, who resigned to become President Barack Obama’s secretary of state.
While D’Amato tepidly backed Gillibrand’s Republican opponent in 2012, he never criticized her. In fact, in 2014, he penned a short essay about Gillibrand for Time magazine, praising her “tenacious” work in the House and Senate and saying she would “make a great President.”
Things change. D’Amato now rips Gillibrand from going from a NRA A-rated “blue dog” House Democrat to one of the most liberal members of the Senate.
In endorsing Farley, D’Amato in a statement obtained by the Daily News said, “The Kirsten Gillibrand of today is unrecognizable to the person who interned for me or even the person who served in Congress — she has abandoned New Yorkers in her pursuit of her presidential ambitions.”
A Gillibrand spokesman had no comment. Three weeks after Gov. Cuomo asked for a formal state attorney general review of Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr.’s handling of a sexual assault investigation into Harvey Weinstein that yielded no charges, no formal referral from the governor has yet been issued.
“Our position is we need a referral and we haven’t received one yet,” said Eric Soufer, a spokesman for Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. “We hope to receive it soon.”
There is still time. The review, when announced, wasn’t supposed to start for 45 days while Vance wraps up other investigations centered on Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood mogul.
“We’re engaged with the AG’s office and they’ll have what they need before the 45 days,” said Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi.
According to information provided by Schneiderman’s office, Cuomo became the first governor to seek a review of a sitting DA’s decision-making process in a case since his father, Mario, in 1994.
State GOP Chairman Ed Cox accused the governor of trying to send a message to Vance at a time when the Republicans have formally called on the prosecutor to investigate the Cuomo administration for corruption.
“This is the dark prince doing what he does, putting fear into people and bullying people to make sure they don’t do things to hurt his political future,” Cox said.
Azzopardi said it’s Cox who should be investigated by a district attorney for his ties to Noble oil company and whether he’s acting as an unregistered lobbyist.
lll State Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan expressed “shock” that Sen. Jeffrey Klein and his group of eight Independent Democratic Conference members last week broke their leadership coalition with the GOP to go back to the Democrats, a source who spoke directly to him said.
“He wasn’t happy. He just sounded frustrated,” the source said. “He basically said this was the governor trying to protect his own butt, just insisting to Klein that it has to happen, and Klein folded. He can’t understand why he did it without cutting a good deal for himself and his members.”
Klein, who along with the rest of his members is facing primaries this year from the left, told The News last week that in the age of President Trump, the time has come for the Democrats to reunify.