Cuomo’s top aide resigns from team
Past 2 years have been trying, she says
ALBANY, N.Y. — Melissa DeRosa, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s top aide, has resigned from her role, she told the media Sunday night, about a week after a state attorney general report found the governor had sexually harassed 11 women.
DeRosa joined Cuomo’s administration in 2013, eventually becoming one of the governor’s most trusted confidantes. She became his top aide in 2017.
“Personally, the past two years have been emotionally and mentally trying,” DeRosa wrote in her statement. “I am forever grateful for the opportunity to have worked with such talented and committed colleagues on behalf of our state.”
Scores of Democrats, including President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and some past Cuomo loyalists, have urged him to leave office or face an impeachment battle
About two-thirds of state Assembly members have already said they favor an impeachment trial if he refuses to resign. Nearly all 63 members of the state Senate have called for Cuomo to step down or be removed.
“My sense is from what I’m hearing is he’s still looking for ways to fight this and get his side of the story out,” state Democratic party Chairman Jay Jacobs said. Jacobs added: “I just think that he’s going to, at some point, see that the political support is just not anywhere near enough to even make an attempt worthwhile.”
The governor’s lawyers have promised what will likely be a drawn-out fight to stay in office.
Cuomo — who for months said the public would be “shocked” once he shared his side of the story — has not spoken publicly since the release of a 168-page report written by two independent attorneys who were selected by the state attorney general to investigate.
Brittany Commisso, the female executive assistant who accused Cuomo of groping her, told “CBS This Morning” and the Albany Times-Union in her first public interview in which she identified herself that the governor “needs to be held accountable.” She was the first woman to file a criminal complaint against Cuomo.
Commisso has said Cuomo reached under her shirt and fondled her when they were alone in a room at the Executive Mansion last year and on another occasion rubbed her rear end while they posed for a photo.
“He broke the law,” she said in an excerpt of an interview scheduled to be aired in full today.
Cuomo’s attorneys have centered his defense on attacking the credibility and motives of his accusers. Glavin has also blasted the investigation overseen by Attorney General Letitia James for not providing its findings and transcripts to Cuomo lawyers ahead of time.
Cuomo acknowledged hugging and kissing aides and other individuals in a way that was “unwanted,” Glavin said.
Meanwhile, the state Assembly’s judiciary committee planned to meet today to discuss when to conclude its monthslong investigation into whether there are grounds to impeach Cuomo.
The investigation has focused on sexual harassment and misconduct, the administration’s past refusal to release how many nursing home residents died of covid-19, the use of state resources for Cuomo’s $5 million book deal and efforts to prioritize covid-19 tests for the governor’s inner circle in spring 2020, when testing was scarce.