The Cuomo-Vance war
The terrifying abuse described by ex-partners of ex-state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman demands full, fair and prompt criminal investigation, all agree. Also a matter of consensus: In Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas, Gov. Cuomo appoints a skilled special prosecutor with extensive experience in bringing perpetrators of intimate partner violence to justice.
But boy, did Cuomo and his top lawyer, Alphonso David, make a hash of yanking from Manhattan DA Cy Vance the power to prosecute any crimes sicko Schneiderman may have committed in his West End Ave. apartment, in what smells potently like a play to bolster Cuomo’s standing with women’s groups.
To rewind: Back in March, Cuomo asked Schneiderman, as attorney general, to conduct an inquiry into the Manhattan DA and NYPD’s handling of sexual assault complaints.
This was months after it had emerged that Vance, in 2015, declined to press charges against Harvey Weinstein even though a model had caught Jabba-the-media-mogul on an NYPD wire admitting to grossly groping her.
It happened to be one day after the Hollywood anti-sexual-assault group Time’s Up demanded the probe — and the exact same day Cynthia Nixon jumped into the gubernatorial race.
Set aside for now whether the Cuomo-ordered probe by the AG of the DA is politically motivated. If done right, it will clear the air and increase confidence in the system.
But the AG’s inquiry hadn’t even begun when the tables turned: Schneiderman went from investigator to investigated, and Vance, from his target to his potential prosecutor.
Given that tangled web, the mere perception of a conflict regarding Vance, about to be probed by Schneiderman’s former office, was real enough that the governor was in his rights to hand Singas the keys. Barely.
But Cuomo, through his counsel, then capsized his own attempt to drain bias from a tense political situation by loading on his own electionseason politics, in the name of women wronged.
Wednesday, in a histrionic letter to Vance cc’d to reporters, quoting at length from Time’s Up, David declared the DA fatally distrusted on sex crimes prosecutions — in essence deciding the outcome of the investigation he’d assigned to the AG before it has even begun.
Cuomo and David have preemptively tarred Vance, whose sex-crimes prosecutors are as good as they get, as incapable of being trusted on sexcrimes prosecutions. That could come back to bite if and when the DA does have charges to file against Weinstein.