Another JCOPE charade
Members of the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics must know that a crime may have been committed right under their noses, possibly by someone close to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Possibly by one of them. Yet the commission won’t ask the state attorney general to investigate.
At issue is the apparent leak of a confidential JCOPE vote in 2019 on what’s believed to be the question of whether to open an investigation into whether a former top Cuomo aide, Joseph Percoco, used state resources in the governor’s office while he was on leave to work on Mr. Cuomo’s reelection campaign. Shortly after that vote, which resulted in no investigation, Mr. Cuomo is said to have contacted Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie to express displeasure with how Mr. Heastie’s appointees on the commission voted. Divulging such a vote would be a misdemeanor crime.
An investigation by the state inspector general’s office was inconclusive; little wonder, since neither the governor nor the Assembly speaker was interviewed. So JCOPE last week considered referring the matter to Attorney General Letitia James.
That went nowhere. Four of Mr. Cuomo’s appointees voted against the referral without explanation; another, Colleen Dipirro, abstained, saying that although she has been on JCOPE for two and a half years, she didn’t feel “qualified” or “educated” enough to cast a vote. To put this tortured logic another way, she didn’t have enough information to decide whether more information is needed.
Mr. Heastie’s appointees abstained as well, including one of the targets of the governor’s ire, James Yates, who said he couldn’t cast a vote even to refer the corruption he witnessed for an outside investigation because it would be a conflict of interest. What, one has to wonder, could he possibly be accused of having to gain by a pursuit of the truth?
“Sham” is too mild a word for this corrupted ethics commission. JCOPE has got to go.
Right move on opioid funds
With New York in line for hundreds of millions of dollars in opioid settlement money, state lawmakers did the right thing in passing legislation to create a special fund for that money and ensure it’s spent on the crisis, not just used to balance the budget.
Last week, Mr. Cuomo signed it, which was hardly a given. The governor wanted more flexibility, including the ability to use the money to replace existing state spending on the problem, rather than enhance it. To its credit, the Legislature dug in. And to Mr. Cuomo’s credit, he gave in.
Yes, get to the truth of Jan. 6
Before the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by fanatic followers of former President Donald Trump is spun and twisted any more by politicians and pundits trying to rewrite history, America needs an authoritative look at the entire affair. Congress was offered the chance for a fully bipartisan commission to undertake that, but Senate Republicans, running interference for Mr. Trump, blocked it.
So House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has designated a select committee to take up the task, and Republicans complain they don’t have equal representation on it — as the commission they rejected would have provided.
No more games, no more delay. This attack our democracy must be fully investigated and understood.