Share the Cuomo files
Andrew Cuomo’s attorney’s 25-page letter to the Assembly Judiciary Committee responds to the panel’s hopefully soon-to-conclude examination of the sexual harassment claims against him, as well as the obfuscation of nursing homes’ COVID data and the use of public-payroll aides to help write his ill-timed book. The probe must be full and complete, not a repackaging of the Aug. 3 report of Attorney General Tish James prepared by outside lawyers Joon Kim and Anne Clark, the fallout of which drove Cuomo from the governor’s office.
If the committee and their outside counsel, Davis Polk, find additional evidence of misconduct by Cuomo or anyone else, include it. Same if the panel uncovers exculpatory material or important context that the AG missed or omitted. The goal is the truth.
As we’ve said before, while making clear that Cuomo’s behavior unacceptably (and contrary to a law the governor himself signed) made female subordinates profoundly uncomfortable in the workplace, the Kim-Clark report conflated distinct matters. Some of the 11 complainants identified were not government employees; others told of relatively trivial encounters.
Judiciary Chairman Chuck Lavine and his colleagues must focus on the most serious allegations made by state employees. Here Cuomo’s lawyer, Rita Glavin, raises questions about two accusers.
Did the AG probers know of two potentially relevant situations involving accuser Charlotte Bennett at Hamilton College? Glavin also points to indications that accuser Lindsey Boylan pressed witness Howard Zemsky to change his testimony. While accusers shouldn’t be put on trial, it is incumbent on investigators to subject them to sober credibility tests.
Meanwhile, the Assembly is using the transcripts from the AG probe, but has unfairly denied those transcripts to Cuomo and the witnesses, including denying each person their own transcript.
Cuomo and James both want the transcripts released, but the AG is withholding them as five district attorneys — David Soares in Albany, Greg Oakes in Oswego County, Joyce Smith in Nassau, Westchester’s Mimi Roach and Cy Vance in Manhattan — say they’re mulling possible criminal charges. Hurry up. File charges or don’t, freeing James to publish the transcripts.