Covering for Cuomo
It’s simply obscene that New York’s premier ethics panel just failed to demand that ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo fork over the $5 million he collected for his “leadership” book, produced with the illegal help of his staffers even as they were helping boost his payday by covering up the truth about how his orders raised the death toll in state care homes.
The same day, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics also killed a proper investigation into an illegal leak to Cuomo about JCOPE’s own proceedings in regard to an investigation of his corrupt former righthand man.
And this is after Gov. Kathy Hochul filled two JCOPE posts vacated by Cuomoites: Her new picks proceeded to side with Cuomo. So much for her pledge that ethics and transparency would be a “hallmark” of her administration.
JCOPE’s own rules are part of the problem: The vote was 7-6 to claw back Cuomo’s unsavory profit, but eight votes were needed.
As Cuomo nemesis Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens) told The Post, all this “conveys that Kathy Hochul is not concerned about holding Cuomo accountable or rooting out corruption in Albany.” Hochul, meanwhile, said she “literally” doesn’t know the former judge she appointed to the panel. Way to prioritize ethics, Kathy!
Cuomo remains under federal criminal investigation; it’s possible he’ll still have to give up his blood money — though President Biden’s public sorrow over Cuomo’s fall certainly doesn’t encourage prosecutors to make that case.
Two things are certain. First, JCOPE needs to be
shut down and replaced by an independent ethics panel that’s not packed with partisans and doesn’t operate under rules designed to stymie any investigation that comes too close to home for New York’s leaders.
Second: When it comes to Albany’s culture of corruption, Hochul is either stupefyingly naïve or part of the problem.